


The Companion Bride

by Turn_of_the_Sonic_Screw



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005), Princess Bride (1987)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Epic Love, F/F, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Mentions of other characters - Freeform, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-20
Updated: 2016-01-29
Packaged: 2018-05-15 03:34:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 15
Words: 24,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5769694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Turn_of_the_Sonic_Screw/pseuds/Turn_of_the_Sonic_Screw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>True Love and High Adventure with a Doctor Who-twist. </p><p>Also there will be interspersions from a post-Hell Bent Clara and Doctor with adorable fluffball grandbabies, so potential for slight spoilers.</p><p>Focuses primarily on Series 8 and 9, with some mentions/cameos from earlier seasons.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Introduction

**Author's Note:**

> I'll try to put a headnote at the start of chapters that are going to contain violence or torture. Nothing too graphic, since that isn't really my bag.

“Mum, dad,” Hermione kisses them each on the cheek. It's strange, and it catches her every time, looking older than her ageless mother. Soon she'll start looking as gray as her old man. “Thanks for dropping by on such short notice to watch the little ones while they're home sick.” 

“Not a problem!” the Doctor gushes. “I love them when they're in miniature.” Often much more sensible than the full-size models.

“You always have such a way with words.” Hermione checks her face paint. “You know I'd stay with them, but there's the festival tonight—”

“—and you're the high priestess,” Clara concludes; it always startles her when she realizes how her little girl has grown. Not that she isn't proud... “Go on then, shoo. Harvest won't bless itself.” 

“Thanks again,” she calls, starting her speeder. “Mama Adalia should be home in a few hours, and there's a casserole in the fridge.”

“Gramps and Granny!” the kids cry before breaking into a coughing fit.

“Nice to see you too,” Clara says as the Doctor obligingly fluffs his hands in their hair.

“I want to go to the festival,” Quinn grouches.

“Now, it wouldn't be nearly so much fun if you were sneezing and coughing all over the place, now would it?” The seven-year-old boy on her lap thinks very hard about this proposition before nodding. “So instead, your grandad and I are going to make a pot of tea, tell you a story, and tomorrow, if you're feeling better, you can go to the second night of the festival.”

“Yay!” he cheers.

“Is it going to be one of you and Daddy's stories from when you traveled everywhere in the TARDIS?” Macha asks. “Those are the best!”

“Not tonight, wee one,” the Doctor tells her. He squeezes both her hands to distract himself. Every time he thinks about the TARDIS, he thinks about how they aren't traveling anymore, and why. “No, we've got an original Earth classic, by S. Morgenstern.” His eyes twinkle. “And you just might recognize some of the characters.”

“Are you and Gran in it?” she asks, delighted. She wants to grow up to be one or both of her grandparents, depending on how the mood strikes her. Or possibly a princess. Or a neurosurgeon like her mama. Quinn says he knows he wants to be a painter, but she thinks that's ridiculous; how could anyone know what they want to grow up to be at such a young age?

“You could say that,” Clara hedges. They may or may not have taken the TARDIS on a brief side-trip to meet one of Clara's favorite authors, saved him from a marauding Terileptil, and convinced him to write an 'unofficial' version of his greatest classic. She smiles, and opens the book, and starts to read.


	2. Chapter 1: The Bride

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we meet our heroine and our hero, and True Love blossoms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: periodically, there will be intrusions from the frame narrative, marked in [brackets], just so we're all clear on that. 
> 
> Also, if student-teacher romance skeeves you out, this is not the chapter for you.
> 
> Also, there are two off-screen deaths, one temporary, one canonical.

When Clara Oswald was born, the most beautiful woman in the world was an inventor's daughter named Rose Tyler. Her complexion glowed with the light of youth and her smile brightened any room—and any heart—that saw it. She caught the eye of two officers in the army, one young and charming, the other old and weighted with a great sorrow. They nearly fought a duel for her hand before she announced that she would have them both, or none at all. Put like that, the men consented, and the next anyone saw of her was five babies and fifteen years later, her youthful sheen worn away to a handsome maturity.

When Clara Oswald was seven, the most beautiful woman in the world was Martha Jones, just starting her apprenticeship to a leech. She wore perfect, dusky skin with grace and wisdom beyond her years. Then she began to travel, and to treat the sick, and save the world one screaming child at a time. While no-one would deny that her work revealed her inner beauty, even her fondest admirers had to admit that the long hours and near-constant vomit in her hair took their toll on her outward appearance.

When Clara Oswald was eleven, the most beautiful woman in the world was a warrior woman named Amelia Pond. From long, athletic legs to flaming hair, she was every inch of her six feet a vision of seductive, violent perfection. That perfection finally took a blow when she was grievously wounded in a battle; one of her comrades defended her where she lay and nursed her back to health, never leaving her side until she was well enough to speak. Her first words were a proposal. He accepted despite her scars.

When Clara Oswald was fourteen, none of this concerned her. As far as she was concerned, the most beautiful woman in the world was her mother, Eleanor Oswald. And her mother was dead.

Her father grieved for a year before remarrying. Clara grieved far longer. Of course, there were some small mercies—her father left to live with her stepmother and his business in town. (Perhaps the presence of an evil stepmother should have clued her in to the fairy-tale nature of her future.) That left Clara on the family farm with three other people. Her beloved grandmother. A farmhand, Adrian. And a tutor her father had hired, Basil, a man Clara thought of only as the Doctor. 

The Doctor was a gaunt man of early middle years; poor, but with excellent credentials. If she had known the word, Clara would have said he looked professorial in a red velvet coat. (If rock-and-roll had been invented, she would have said he looked like an aging rock god.) While her grandmother could teach her much of the more practical things in life—cooking, mending, running a household on the little money Clara's father sent—her father had insisted that the daughter of a successful merchant know more of the world, and so sent for someone to teach Clara history, geography, languages, mathematics, and literature. He did much more for her than that, of course, talking to her, playing with her, tending her when she was ill, generally doing what she asked, and whenever she would ask why, he would simply reply that he had a duty of care. For her part, Clara shrugged and accepted this, and so it went for four years.

In addition to the four humans, there was her horse, named Horse. (She had acquired Horse at a younger, less creative, less knowledgeable age. Now that the Doctor had begun to teach her what he knew about all sorts of subjects, she wished she could rename the thing; Bucephalus, perhaps, or Darcy. But the name had stuck.) She rode Horse into town, trying desperately to avoid her stepmother. There, she discovered that the girls refused to talk to her, and the boys appeared flatly unable to manage more than stammered observances about the weather. Clara simply rolled her eyes and thanked her stars for the company of people like the Doctor, who rarely seemed short of words around her, often telling her of his travels.

It was as she was rolling her eyes that she did not notice a high-born man, sitting on his horse, unheeding of the rest of the town, from the peasants to the mayor, eyes fixed on Clara Oswald. She tended to have this effect on men (and some women), though she didn't notice this and would have preferred they simply talked to her. But this man certainly noticed her, and it was he who mentioned her to the Mistress.

***

Skaro was, in theory, ruled by the Emperor. (It was located just west of where Karn's borders would finally settle, but this was before there was a Kasterborous.) But the old man had very nearly given up the ghost, and this meant that the next logical person to run things would have been his son, Prince Davros. But the feeble prince preferred his experiments to the drudgery of ruling, and so he left most things to the Parliament (parliaments were fairly recent inventions), while still handling most of the major decisions and commanding the army and navy. If there had been a Kasterborous, he would have been the most terrifying man in it.

The Mistress was Prince Davros's only confidant. Her last name was Rugen, though as she was the only Mistress, hardly anyone bothered to use it. She was a severe woman with a sharp purple skirt, a sharp purple jacket, and a sharp purple hat. And one afternoon she came to the Oswalds' farm.

***

At the time, Clara and the Doctor were beneath a tree, puzzling out a maths lesson; Clara sitting on a stump with her slate and the Doctor standing, pacing, asking her questions. The Mistress's eyes fell first on Clara, just long enough to appraise her and catalog her like an animal at the fair. But then –oh, then!--they fell on the Doctor. Hungry. Predatory. _Desiring_ And then she was gone in the thunder of hooves. Clara managed to finish her lesson, but only just, and then flung herself into her bed to stew with a stolen bottle of wine in her nightgown.

What was it that bothered her about the Mistress staring at the Doctor? What was so very wrong about it? He was tall enough, but height wasn't everything; wasn't she proof of that? Frankly, he was a bit dried-up looking, though his eyes were quite lovely, and his teeth were very good as things went. But most of the things she liked about him weren't things you could see—certainly not from as far as the road. The way they spoke together, the way he treated her as an equal, even though she was a good twenty years his junior. His rare smiles and rarer laughs. The way his greying curls ruffled in a gentle breeze, soft beneath her fingers. The—oh.

She was in love. Oh, hell. With a clatter as the empty goblet fell from her fingers, she started up and gathered her robe about her in the dark as she flurried over to the Doctor's cottage. “There are some things that people like us should tell each other,” she began, face flushed with emotion and wine. “I love you,” she blurted out, and before she could gather up the nerve to go further, he shut the door in her face.

On the other side of the door, Basil's hands shook. He had been harboring inappropriate feelings for his student for, well, an inappropriate period of time. He was honest enough (at least with himself) to admit that the fault was his, and not with wide brown eyes, with bold questions or clever insights, with sad, sweet smiles, with bravery and kindness, and certainly not in that commanding air she had. “You don't want me,” he offered. “Surely you'd rather have the farmhand.”

“Adrian?” Clara's nose wrinkled. “He's a lovely boy, but he breaks out in hives and a stammer whenever I get within five feet of him. And the next time you presume to know my desires better than I do I'll detach something.”

“This is wrong on so many levels,” Basil murmured.

“I love how you think I don't know that, and, more to the point, _that I care_ ,” Clara chuckled. 

Basil could picture every detail of her face down to her imperious, amused smirk. Mercy, he pleaded. “I have a duty of care,” he said through the door, voice raised, anguished. He leaned against the door, trying to draw strength from the familiarity of wood. 

“What does that even mean, Doctor?” she goaded him, sobbing.

A deep breath in, out. “What it's always done,” and then he could stall no longer. “I love you.” 

“Come on out, then,” Clara insisted. “Or let me in, I don't care. I shall find a window if I must.”

Basil relented, stepping away from the door. “We can't stay here, and I can't be your tutor. Not if we are going to...” He coughed. “I shall go to America and seek my fortune.”

“And I will travel Skaro to seek mine,” Clara vowed. 

“Come on then; we'll need to pack,” Basil insisted. 

“Wait,” Clara said. “First things first.”

There have been five truly great kisses in human history. Scholars have debated on how, exactly, to rank them as a matter of taste, but that there were five nearly perfect kisses was without doubt. 

This kiss blew them all to kingdom come.

Apparently, Basil thought, I _am_ a kissing person.

***

“Is this going to be a kissing book?” Quinn interrupts.

“It's a lots of things book,” Clara explains patiently, putting on her best teacher voice. Which _really_ shouldn't arouse the Doctor, but it does. “Adventure, betrayal, sword fights.” She grins and bops him on the nose. “All the good stuff.”

“And it has a happy ending?” Macha asks, wrapping her arms around her legs, which are folded under her chin. She doesn't mind the kissing as much but if it's going to be sad in the end she wants to prepare herself now. 

“That,” Clara insists, “would be telling.” 

The Doctor just smiles cryptically, but runs a comforting hand down Macha's back, and she smiles. God, Clara thinks, but he's good with kids. And that _really_ shouldn't arouse her, but it does. “Now,” he continues, scratching along with his brogue, “where were we...?”

***

The following morning, Clara went to her grandmother to announce her plans. [“Hang on, what does that make her to us?”] 

“Mm, finally!” Clara stared, slackjawed, as her grandmother continued. “I've seen the way you look at your tutor, even if you haven't, so I'm glad you're seeing each other.” Yes, Clara thought, we are truly seeing one another, perhaps for the first time; how had she never seen it before, never heard it in each 'duty of care?'. “And I've long suspected that this little farm wouldn't be enough for you, my darling Clara. Ever since you blew in on that leaf,” Clara smiled at the invocation of her mother and father's first meeting, “I guessed you would just keep blowing.” Clara pressed a hand against her gran's wrinkled cheek. “Don't you worry about me; I'll manage, even if it means selling the farm and moving in with your father and that harlot he took up with. You've been far too good to an old thing like me, lingering around and providing me with company.” Clara gasped—she hadn't even thought about her grandmother; things had been a trifle hectic yesterday. “You just make me proud, young one.”

“I will,” Clara promised.

She gathered up the rest of her belongings, or all of them that would fit in her traveling case, and then she and Basil were ready to go their separate ways. “Come on then,” he began, “time to see what we are made of, you and I.” He pressed a fond kiss to her forehead.

“Wait,” Clara interrupted. “Before we go, I love you. Not in a routine, automatic way. Those words, from me, are yours now. You are the only one I will ever love, Basil, my Doctor.”

Basil nods, somberly. “And I love you. Always.”

***

Clara had always taken pains about her appearance; it was, after all, an aspect of her universe which she could control, and so she did. Indeed, she was rather fond of her own appearance: not in a vain way, you must understand, (well, perhaps a tiny bit vain, if she was having a rare moment of honesty with herself) but in a self-satisfied sort of way. But now, now that she had someone she thought might care about her looks (other than herself), she made certain that every part of her body was as attractive as she could make it. Similarly, she attacked what might generally be thought of as 'accomplishments' with equal vigor. She had a vague idea that she might try to catch on as a governess, for one thing. For another, as deeply as she loved Basil, she had little idea what he might find desirable in a wife. She had taken a few of Basil's books with her on her travels in order to further her education. Would he like dressage? Latin? The fundamentals of philosophy? She studied them all—always saving some time to read literature, her favorite topic. 

They corresponded regularly, trading stories of their journeys. They finished their sentences with the words “and I love you,” until almost they had lost all meaning. It was hardly necessary to do so; only the blind could miss the implications in their every letter, their every word, their every gaze into the distance, as though somehow they could see the other. 

“Have secured passage to America and I love you,” Basil wrote. “Will not be able to write for some time and I love you. Be safe and I love you.” 

That was the last she heard of him until a telegram came through announcing that Basil's ship had been taken by the Dread Pirate Roberts. “Doesn't leave any survivors,” one gossip said. “Not a chance,” she had concluded, shaking her head with pity.

“No,” Clara had said. “No, it can't.” Her eyes were wide, unseeing. “No!” Her voice lowered. “I am owed better.” She went into the rooms she had rented and emerged three days later, fire in her eyes. She was sad, and she was beautiful. Even more beautiful, in fact, than she had been before. “I will never love again,” she informed her grandmother by telegraph. And that was where Prince Davros found her.

***

“Wait a minute,” Macha butts in. “Grandad, you can't be dead, you're reading the story.”

“It's just a make-believe story,” Quinn reminds her, but he, too, looks nervous about the story's events. “He must have regenerated.”

“But he's got the same face,” Macha argues. “He can't have regenerated.”

Clara coughs. “You aren't getting sick, are you?” Macha asks, concerned.

“No, but my poor sick grandchildren might need to go to bed early if they can't focus on the story,” she teases. Both little ones sit quietly. “Chapter 2,” she reads.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just in case you weren't sure, oh yes, that is my Nine/Rose/Jack OT3 showing.
> 
> Yes, we're going to be calling the Doctor 'Basil' throughout. Because it would have been just as weird if Buttercup had called Westley 'Farm Boy' for the entire story. 
> 
> Also, yes, I'm repurposing canon!Clara's declaration of love for Danny to apply to the Doctor. Sorry. I feel kind of bad about this. But I have other plans for Danny Pink, whom I love dearly.


	3. Chapter 2: The Groom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we learn more of Prince Davros.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next three chapters are all brief, so you get them all at once. Enjoy!

Prince Davros was a frail man but strong in spirit and intellect. He and Mistress Rugen had built a gray, steel chariot together which he used to travel from place to place without the aid of horses. He was vaguely interested in becoming king after the current Emperor passed away. He enjoyed war, or, as he called it, the destruction of lesser beings. But his true passion was the creation of the perfect soldier, the ultimate warrior race. 

Unto that end he had gathered creatures from all over the globe, the deadliest his agents could capture. (Even with the chariot, he could only travel so far, especially with his duties.) These creatures went into his Zoo of Death, which he had constructed with Mistress Rugen's help. The only other visitor was the albino keeper, who kept the animals fed and healthy. He had a peculiar affinity for the snakes.

The zoo was built underground, with five levels. The first was for specimens of strength. The second for specimens of speed. The third level was for poisoners; the fourth for masters of fear. Even the albino shivered when he had to visit the fourth level. All these he kept for his studies and his experiments, trying to pick out and replicate their strengths: the hummingbird's agility, the rhino's strength, the king bat's swooping speed, the blood eagle's viciousness. 

The fifth level was empty. Davros hoped to find something worthy, something to test his super-soldier against, or perhaps something to use as the template to be molded. He had yet to find anything, but he was confident that someday his searches would be rewarded. 

It was in the Zoo of Death that Mistress Rugen came to Prince Davros. “I bring word from your father's most recent physical.”

“And?” Davros asked. The Mistress waited until he had finished dissecting the spider before him, extracting its venom sac.

“He is dying, my prince.”

Davros released a rasping sigh. “Then I shall have to get married.”


	4. Chapter 3: The Courtship

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Davros proposes marriage.

“Find me someone beautiful,” Davros said to Rugen. “I care for nothing else about her.” For though Davros was not physically handsome himself, it had occurred to him that perhaps an ideal super-soldier should be attractive in order to demonstrate its complete perfection. 

“Even a commoner, my lord?” Rugen asked.

Davros rolled his sunken eyes. The Mistress was playing her games again. Though sometimes frustrating, he found it best to let her have her fun. “Especially a commoner,” he informed her. That way, when she went missing, there would be no important family to deal with.

“Then she is found, Davros.” The Mistress had kept an eye on Clara since that first, brief meeting. Such beauty, such spirit! She would have been a delicious morsel to break as a pet. But there was so much to do, she simply hadn't gotten around to it. But this would do nicely, she decided, and perhaps Davros would leave her some scraps to play with, so she led him unhesitatingly to Clara Oswald's flat.

“Hello?” she answered the feeble knock. 

“You shall marry me.”

“No,” she snorted.

“If you refuse, I shall kill you,” he cautioned her. 

“Go on then, do it.” Never start with your final sanction, she reminded herself. 

“How could you rather die than marry me?” Clara grinned. She gotten him to back down, start negotiating.

“Because I will never love again.”

“Love? Love has never won a battle. You can marry me, give me an heir, and become the most powerful woman for a thousand miles, or die in agonizing pain. Choose.” Of course, you will still die in agonizing pain, Davros thought.

“I'll never love you.” I will, in fact, most likely despise you, Clara thought. 

“Your emotions are not relevant.”

“Then by all means let us marry.”


	5. Chapter 4: The Preparations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What with one thing and another, three years passed. 
> 
> Plus grandbaby fluff.

Clara Oswald learned to be a princess; was, in fact, made Princess of Blackpool to hide her common origins somewhat. The Emperor fired Miracle Vastra, his current Miracle Madame, and hired another; his health improved. And what with one thing and another, three years passed.

***

“Is that it for Chapter 4?” Quinn asked.

“Wait, wait, you forgot the important bit,” Macha interrupts him imperiously. “Grannie, are you really a princess?”

“Of course she is,” the Doctor tells her proudly. 

“You're just saying that because you love her so much,” Macha giggles. Quinn gags.

Clara's face reddens. “Actually, he's saying that because I married the Queen of Ghulixx 7 while I was still traveling with your Auntie Me. And yes, that is all for Chapter 4.”

“You should have seen the original,” the Doctor intones. “Boring.” The kids laugh.


	6. Chapter 5: The Announcement (Part 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is a kidnapping, a change of plans, and a shadowy pursuer. 
> 
> On second thought, he probably is just out for a pleasure cruise, at midnight, through eel-infested waters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for (unsuccessful) suicide attempt.

Clara stood beside Davros above the Great Square; he had just announced their betrothal. She, for her part, had not shoved him off the balcony. “I wish to walk among my people,” she informed the Prince sweetly. Not least because she needed to shake off the stink of fawning courtiers and the Prince's disdain. She ignored his token protest and strode through the crowd.

For a relative value of through. Clara had been beautiful before, but with a squadron of handmaidens to brush her hair and tend her skin, she could project an aura about her, and the commoners dared not impinge on that aura. 

Everyone there was in awe of her. Most adored her. Many wanted to bed her. Several of them were jealous of her. But only three wanted to kidnap her.

And, there, in the furthest corner of the plaza, in the tallest building, watching the announcement was the Man in Black. His coat was black, lined with blood-red silk. His boots were black; his pants and shirt. His hooded sweater and mask were black. But his eyes, perhaps most terrifying of all, were a stormy gray.

***

“I bet he's the Valeyard,” Quinn says knowledgeably.

“Ooh, maybe.” Macha chews on the ends of her hair. The Doctor, fortunately wearing red velvet today, just snorts.

***

As little as Clara Oswald liked Davros, she loved his library. All the books she had ever touched before, in her entire life, would fit onto one shelf of Davros's massive collection. And there was shelf after shelf of gorgeously bound books. And so, in between her lessons, she would abscond with a volume, ride off with Horse, and read until the daylight failed.

She had just threaded a ribbon to mark her place when a strange trio of figures approached her: a diminutive Viking, flanked by an immense Moor and a muscular Englishwoman. The Englishwoman wore spectacles and a magnificent sword. The Moor was the largest human being Clara had ever laid eyes on, but possessed of an odd gentleness. The Viking girl was even shorter than Clara and had the sort of face Clara would want to kiss had she not already forsworn the love of all others and was not engaged to a ruthless sadist. [“Is that Auntie Me?” “Hush!”]

“My lady.” The Viking curtseyed, lowering her eyes. The demure look didn't suit the girl, but Clara wanted to take her anyway. Her eyes flick back to the other two, who have crept closer. “A moment of your time?” Clara halted, then nodded her assent. “We are but humble performers,” here Clara tensed—she had told too many lies not to spot one. “She suspects—take her! Alive.” Quick as lightning, the Englishwoman darted forward, landing a single precise punch, knocking her unconscious.

***

“We've got the girl,” the Viking confirmed quietly. “And the rest of our fee?” She forced the nervousness from her voice; after their first meeting, their employer had preferred to work through agents and middlemen. Danny and Osgood hadn't met her at all. Even now, they were in the back room of a tavern so smoky and dimly-lit as to make it nearly impossible to see, sitting in a particularly shadowy booth, far from even the dusky light of the windows, nonchalantly not-looking at one another.

“Change of plans.” The Mistress wiped delicately at her lips with a cloth. “She needs to die. In Gallifrey.”

“No,” Ashildr's tea sloshed. “No, I never wanted to hurt anyone.” 

“I think it's rather late for that now, dearie. Or did you forget that kidnapping the princess is treason?” She mock-pouted. “And there's always the little detail of that _personal_ debt you owe me.” Ashildr gulped as the Mistress's finger brushed her chest, where the alchemical engine that prolonged her life and youth resided, the Mistress's own brilliant design. The same debt that had gotten Ashildr and her associates into this mess in the first place.

“Why didn't you tell me this at the beginning?” Her mouth was dry.

“Because you never would have agreed to it!” the Mistress explained as though this was the most obvious answer in the world. “Seems like you have something resembling a heart in there after all. And then I would have had to kill you and find someone else to kill the girl.” She paused. “Don't think I won't do it myself. Because I will. And I'll enjoy it.” She licked her lips.

“You witch,” Ashildr spat, but her mind was already made up.

“I prefer the term alchemist.” The Mistress smiled brightly. “Go on then! You've got a princess to kill, a war to start, and Gallifrey to blame for it.” That explained the torn sleeve of a Gallifreyan soldier's uniform she had been instructed to leave when they had taken Clara. “I'll be watching.”

Ashildr shuddered, but left to do what she must.

***

The next thing Clara knew, she was swaying gently back and forth, tucked under a blanket, the sound of lapping waves in her ears. She held her breath and listened.

“Petronella, is there anything ahead of us?” Ashildr demanded, manning the tiller and the sail. 

“The water is clear, Ashildr,” the Englishwoman confirmed. “Danny, do you see anyone following us?”

“Nobody,” the Moor replied. “Twice nine is eighteen,” he added nervously.

“Plus thirty-five is fifty-three.” Danny smiled; doing sums with Osgood always relaxed him.

“There couldn't possibly be anyone following us,” the Viking said with disgust. “We hired the fastest boat in the channel, and they won't discover the girl is gone for twenty-seven minutes. By then we'll be to Gallifrey, safe and sound.”

Clara waited, perfectly still, not daring to breathe. Now she knew all three of their names, and their destination. Not bad for a few minutes' work, she thought. Let's see what else they'll tell me.

“There's no sense shamming any more,” the Viking interjected, and with surprisingly strong hands pulled Clara upright. 

“Well, go on then,” Clara said, eyes rolled.

“What?” Danny asked.

“Kill me,” Clara replied simply. [Quinn and Macha both gasp.] Osgood and Danny exchanged nervous looks. She regarded them scornfully, especially Ashildr. “Oh, come on, I can match your names to your faces, and you've kidnapped a princess. You'll all hang for treason if I survive this little encounter; you had to know that. Which means you want me dead, but not just yet, obviously, because I'm still alive. We're on a boat, and the only water close enough is the Gallifrey Channel. And even a half-trained princess like me knows that Skaro and Gallifrey are traditional enemies.” She crossed her arms. “This really hadn't occurred to either of you, had it?” 

“I don't pay them for their brains, princess,” but for all her venom, Ashildr looked ashamed. And the other two seemed to follow her thread of logic well enough, which meant intelligent but naive. Interesting.

“So, this is all a bit new for you, too,” Clara deduced. “Who put you up to this, I wonder? Someone who wants war between Gallifrey and Skaro. Dead princess like me would be the perfect excuse.” She laughed mirthlessly. “Well, we all have go sooner or later.” Her mind flashed. “But you need my body, don't you?” She leapt up onto the bowsprit. “Can't cause an international scandal with a _missing_ princess, can you?” 

“The Shrieking Eels,” Osgood blurted out.

“Oh, I'm counting on them,” Clara told them. “Drowning's so slow, isn't it? But the Shrieking Eels, now, they're deadly.” A slightly daft grin played across her lips. A watery grave wouldn't be so bad, she considered. That would be one way of reuniting with her dear Basil. “So you'll tell me what I want to know or I swear I'll throw myself over the side. Now, who are you working for?”

Ashildr squirmed beneath the royal gaze. Well, she allowed herself, what was the harm? Clara would be dead in an hour, and the three of them would be too rich to care. “Mistress Rugen.”

If Clara was surprised, she didn't show it. “Right bastard, she is. And I'd heard she was born in Gallifrey before she turned renegade.”

Pity she wouldn't be ruling Skaro, Ashildr thought. Clever as anything and fearless as hell. Not to mention hot as blazes. 

“I don't suppose I can convince you to just let me go,” Clara offered, trying to play on the innocence of two of her captors, such as it was.

“You heard her; if she's discovered, we'll be hanged,” Ashildr snapped. “I found you in Afghanistan feeling sorry for yourself; I found you drinking to drown. I made you! And now you'll throw that away? After everything we've done together?” Ashildr panted; she was a tiny woman, but her mind and her voice were not very heavy weapons and she was master of both. She grinned to herself; she could see the other two waver and return to the fold. Ugly business, but someone had to do it, and if it came to it, better her doing it to Clara than Rugen doing it to all four of them. 

“Well, thank you for confirming my suspicions,” Clara announced. “Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a war to stop. Let me be brave,” she added, eyes closed. And without another word, she stepped out into the black. The Shrieking Eels drew near about her.

***

“The princess does not die at this time,” the Doctor adds abruptly.

“Obviously, granddad,” Macha scoffs, though she had been looking a trifle concerned. “We know about Trap Street.” Both adults wince.

“Shall we take a break for dinner?” Clara offers, voice quiet. “I feel like cooking.”

***

Ashildr swore and jumped back to the tiller; every Viking was as at home on a boat as on foot or on horse. “Grab her,” she commanded Danny, and the Moor's huge arms stretched out in the night to snatch her from the icy water. “Now, for the Cliffs of Insanity!” 

Osgood coughed and rubbed an amulet which she kept around her neck. “Would this be a bad time to mention that we are being pursued?”

“I already told you, they won't find her horse for another twenty minutes!” Ashildr snapped. Danny held his piece, contenting himself to wrap a blanket around Clara's shivering form. “It is impossible to think that anyone could be following us.”

“And yet there is something there,” Osgood pointed out.

“Impossible,” Ashildr repeated, even as they all turned to see a small vessel not only following them, but gaining upon them.

Impossible, Clara thought, smiling back at the boat and its lone occupant, his features shrouded in black. My Impossible Girl, her Doctor had called her when she was younger, with the speed she had learned. For the first time in years, Clara felt a glimmer of hope.

She turned and watched as Ashildr guided the boat closer and closer to the perilous cliffs. “The rope!” the Viking cried, and the Moor's implacable arms shot up to seize the rope, a strand of shadow in the darkness. “Tie us fast,” she ordered Osgood, and the Englishwoman managed to get all three of them tied more-or-less comfortably and firmly in place to the giant. “Scuttle the boat,” she commanded Danny, strapped to his broad chest, her shoulder pressing into his face. He didn't need to see for the next step of her plan. Two solid stomps rattled loose the planks of the boat, and water began to rush in. She spared a single glance for the silhouette of their pursuer. “Now climb!” 

This, at least, Danny was comfortable with. Murdering a princess in cold blood was one thing, but using his arms? You could ask Danny to dig a thousand wells and his legs might give out from the walking, and the shovel might fall to splinters, but his arms would be as fresh as when he started. And so, even with Ashildr's shoulder in his nose and Osgood and Clara strapped onto his immense back, he was not in the least put out, and began to climb, happy to be doing something joyously simple.

Insofar as climbing the thousand feet of the Cliffs of Insanity was _simple_. 

This did not concern Ashildr either. Either Danny would get them to the top, or he would not. As a Viking—let alone a Viking who had lived as long as she had—she did not fear death. She did not fear most things. She had enough time to master a great many skills, and a great many fears. But she was afraid of the Man in Black!

“Awfully high up,” Clara remarked. Osgood ran nervous fingers over her amulet. “Do you think he'll catch us?”

“Impossible,” Ashildr muttered, not believing it. 

“I do not think that word means what you think it means,” Osgood replied.

“You're doing very well,” Clara told Danny sweetly. She was rather fond of the giant; perhaps in another world where her heart hadn't been turned into a ruined crater. (Which, she mused, would be what was left of her after the first time they tried to become intimate, given the uncanny size of the man.) “But he's still gaining on us.”

“Impossible!” Ashildr reiterated.

“I know!” Clara's teeth flashed in the moonlight. “Aren't I just?”

“One hundred and eight feet from safety,” Osgood began counting down. 

“Shut your OCD mouth,” Ashildr snarled. 

“Divided by three is thirty-six,” grunted Danny quietly.

“Somebody making you nervous?” Clara taunted Ashildr. “How far away is he, Osgood?” 

“Shut up!” Ashildr screamed. “Faster, Danny!” and the Moor's hands fairly flew up the last sixty feet of rope despite the weight of his passengers. Wrenching herself free, she produced a dagger and sawed through the taut cable at the top of the cliff. “There,” she said, satisfied.

“Hm.” Osgood peered over the edge of the precipice. “He seems to have gotten clear of the rope.” She paused. “And he's still climbing.”

Ashildr took the bridge of her nose between her fingers. “Then you'll have to wait here and stop him.” She wouldn't be able to rest easy unless she knew the Man in Black was no more. “Danny, carry the girl. Osgood, catch up quickly. And if everything goes wrong, remember, both of you: go back to the start.” Time to see if her plan would work.

“Be careful, Osgood.”

“Don't I always? Farewell, Danny.”

“Farewell, Osgood!” And like that, he slung Clara over his shoulder like a summer shawl. 

Osgood turned back to the Man in Black, and as she waited, she drew the six-fingered sword...

***

“We aren't related, are we?” Quinn pipes up. The others look at him. “It's just, you know, Osgood, Oswald, sounds the same. And similar sounding words are often related, so...” His voice trails off.

“Not as far as I know, no.” Clara says. “But it was very clever of you to notice,” she comforts him. 

“As it happens, the names themselves do share an etymological bond,” the Doctor begins. Macha stares at him. He looks confused.

“Back to Osgood, shall we?” Clara says, and the Doctor picks up reading.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going with Ashildr instead of Me because this is still a relatively young Ashildr--only about seventy or so. Her memories of herself should remain intact for a good while yet. Also she hasn't been through nearly as many cycles of losing everyone she's ever known and cared about yet. Also also, she has two friends in Danny and Osgood, (plus she's laboring under the life debt to Rugen) so she isn't as ruthlessly independent as Lady Me, either.


	7. Chapter 5: The Announcement, Part 2: Osgood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Osgood's backstory, and the duel atop the Cliffs of Insanity.

If you wanted a sword and you lived in England, you didn't seek out Bonnie Osgood. [“I thought you said her name was Petronella!” “All will become clear,” the Doctor promises. “You still wouldn't know she was human if I hadn't figured it out,” Clara snorts.] You didn't trace tiny paths through the chalky foothills for a gorgeous length of steel. You would never know to look for a shy, bespectacled, precocious girl if what you wanted was the finest sword in the land.

If you wanted a sword and you lived in England, you went to London. You walked the tangled streets until you came to the shop of Kate Stewart, just a stone's throw from the Tower itself. (It was said that her father, Alistair, had made the swords which had claimed so many of the heads of the Tower's prisoners.) 

You went to Stewart's shop because she was proud, and dry, and besides being a champion at bridge, had a reputation as one of the finest swordsmiths in Europe (if there had been a Europe). 

Not, of course, that the reputation was undeserved: truly, even the least of her blades was a true masterpiece that nobles bragged to own. But, sometimes, there would be commissions that even Stewart could not accomplish. But of course it would not do to refuse. Instead, she give a brusque nod and joke that she would see if she could get it done in between her gardening and her travels, and demand one-half up front as she did with every contract, all very dry. And then she would finish any projects that absolutely had to be completed in the next two weeks, and pack her bags for a trip through the English countryside, always winding up at the cottage of Bonnie Osgood. 

And the two women would embrace. Kate would describe the project to be completed. Bonnie would refuse. When she was home, Petronella, her twin sister, sat, watching, knowing that the same story would play out the same way. It was the same story, but she didn't tire of it. Kate would bribe, wheedle, persuade, appeal to Bonnie's sense of honor, everything. “Come now,” she would plead, “Haven't we always been friends, ever since your father served with me?” Nothing worked, up until Kate threatened to kill herself, drawing a dagger that Bonnie had made her upon the birth of her son. Even as her journeyman's piece, completed at the age of eleven, it was a fabulous blade.

Bonnie would sigh, and tuck the knife back into its scabbard, Kate would produce a feast from her carriage, and the two of them—three if Petronella was there—would dine, and they would agree on the terms of the contract. Then, invariably, Kate would offer to take Bonnie on as a partner, or Petronella on as an apprentice, for both sisters were still quite young. 

“No thank you,” Petronella would say. “I'm studying alchemy.” Had, in fact, created an amulet which helped her breathing problems.

“And what about you,” Kate would say. “Stewart and Osgood?” Bonnie would shake her head. “Osgood and Stewart?”

“No, my friend. You enjoy your fame. I will enjoy my peace and quiet in the hills.” Petronella was always of two minds about this; on one hand, she appreciated having her sister's home available as a retreat from her studies and city life. On the other hand, it would be nice for her sister's genius to be recognized by someone other than Kate Stewart and herself: that included Bonnie. “After all, I am hardly an artist. Bring me an impossible challenge, and then I may consider myself an artist.”

Such a challenge arrived one day, in the form of a woman in purple. “So, you're the sword maker who lives in these hills. The best, I've heard.”

“You must mean Kate Stewart; she will pass through from time to time. She lives in London; visit her.”

“Don't play coy; it really doesn't suit you.” The woman sidled closer. “You see, I like swords. All kinds of sharp, pointy things, really, but swords are where it's at, you know. But I don't have the perfect sword. You see...” And she extended her right hand. Six fingers.

“Oh...” And Bonnie fell to raving, prodding the woman with question after question about her fighting style, measuring her hand, arm, and fingers. “It will be the greatest sword since Excalibur,” she vowed.

She spoke of nothing else for the next year. Petronella visited often, hoping to distract her sister from the consuming nature of the work. But apart from the occasional break for food or sleep, nothing could turn her aside from the extremely difficult piece. Even their eighteenth birthday was only afforded a quarter-hour. Every part of the weapon affected the other, and everything had to account for the surplus digit. 

“At last,” Bonnie said, the day before the year expired. “It is complete. It is perfection. I am an artist.”

“You are a genius, sis!” She drew Bonnie into an embrace. “I'm going to go into town and get a bottle of brandy to celebrate!”

When she returned, Bonnie was bleeding from a mortal wound. “The six-fingered woman,” she gurgled. “She told me the sword was worthless.” Her broken gaze fell upon the discarded blade. “I offered to make her any sword she wanted, told her I'd be her personal blacksmith.” She coughed blood. “She said that would make sense,” she laughs, more blood, “but she said that she was bananas.”

“No, no, the sword is brilliant.” She cradled her twin, trying to think if there was a potion she could mix that would help her sister. “You're brilliant. Please...don't...” Bonnie's eyes clouded over as Petronella whispered goodbye. She buried her sister. Then she took the six-fingered sword and left.

Ten years passed. Kate Stewart was tending her garden when a knock came at her door. “I've retired,” she calls.

“I already have a sword; thank you.”

“Petronella! Where have you been?”

She reflected on the question. “Out of the past 87600 hours—sorry, OCD—14600 sleeping. 7300 squeezing rocks to strengthen my hands. 7300 skipping and darting to improve my agility. 7300 sprinting to strengthen my legs and improve my speed. That leaves 51100 to study the sword.” 

Kate did some math and whistled. “Fourteen hours a day, every day, studying the sword? Where did you find a master?”

“Anywhere I could.” She rubbed her amulet. “But Kate, am I ready?”

“Ready?” Kate couldn't help but think that if Petronella had put this much work into her alchemy, the Philosopher’s Stone would have been hers ages ago. “For God's sake, ready for what?”

“To kill the six-fingered woman,” she replied simply.

Kate worked her through an exhausting demonstration, shouting commands, having her conduct an imaginary duel, blindfolded, sword flashing, feet dodging. Kate held her counsel until the very end. “My grandfather was the Chevalier Lethbridge-Stewart,” she told Osgood.

“I didn't think there were such things as chevaliers.”

“It's the rank above master, and they are _not_ myths. I saw him fence, once, when I was a girl, but the impression has lasted these forty years, undimmed. He was the greatest swordsman I have ever seen. Never in a hundred years would you have bested him. But,” she added, watching Petronella's face droop, “never in a hundred years would he have bested you.” [“I want to grow up to be a chevalier,” Macha decided.]

“Then am I ready?” She tried not to fidget under such praise.

“I would not enjoy being the six-fingered woman,” she said, and Petronella Osgood knew she was ready.

So she began her search. It had all seemed so appealingly straightforward in the beginning. Step 1: master the sword. Step 2: find the six-fingered woman. Step 3: challenge her to a duel. Step 4: kill her. Step 1 was already complete. Step 4 did not concern her unduly; once they were on the dueling ground, it would be her steel against that of her nemesis. Step 3 had taken some work, but ultimately she had decided to leave out all the frills and pose things very simply: Hello, my name is Petronella Osgood. You killed my sister. Prepare to die. Anything else would just complicate matters. 

Step 2, ah, now, there was the kicker. There were only so many people you could ask, “Excuse me, have you seen a noblewoman with six fingers on her right hand?” and only so many local swordsmen you could trounce with one hand tied behind your back before you started to get bored. 

The Viking found Osgood three years later trying to drown the boredom in cheap wine. She promised her that, with her brains, the Moor's strength, and Osgood's steel, they could commit the greatest of crimes. This, at least, sounded like something exciting to do, in between looking for the six-fingered woman, listening for rumors about six-fingered women, and asking people if they had encountered any six-fingered women. And they were brilliant together, with Ashildr leading the way, her intelligence and her will molding the other two. And so if the Viking said the Man in Black had to die, then die he must.

***

Osgood paced along the cliff, glancing down occasionally at the Man in Black. “Hello there!” she cried. The Man in Black looked up, surprised. “I've been watching you for a while now; I don't suppose you could hurry matters up?”

“This isn't going to turn into bantering, is it?” the Man in Black called. “Because I'm opposed to bantering at the best of times, and this is rather delicate work.”

“I could throw you the remains of the rope from where Ashildr cut it loose, but I doubt you'd accept it,” Osgood continued. 

“Seeing as you are waiting there to kill me,” the Man in Black pointed out.

“I could give you my word as an Englishwoman.”

“No good; I'm half-Scottish on my mother's side.”

Osgood mulled this over. “I swear by the soul of Bonnie Osgood: no harm shall come to you until you reach the top of the cliff!”

The Man in Black hesitated. “Throw me the rope.” You could trust an oath like that, he thought as Osgood hauled him the last twenty feet with ease.

“I'm glad you accepted,” Osgood said brightly. “You look like you might be a challenge; once you've had a chance to rest, of course.

“I thank you,” said the Man in Black, with what was rather obviously as much courtesy as he was capable of.

Osgood bowed and turned to survey the landscape. It was a perfect dueling ground, nicely spaced with trees, boulders, natural ramps, and rocky patches. There was the sheer drop of the cliff, of course. And bathing everything in eerie whiteness, the light of the full moon. 

“I have my breath back now,” the Man in Black informed Osgood. “Hope I wasn't interrupting anything.”

“No, no. It's just, you seem a decent fellow; I hate to kill you.” She drew her sword with her left hand.

“You seem a decent woman; I hate to die.” He brandished his own blade with his left and pressed the attack. 

Osgood practically beamed. It had been so long since anyone had actually attacked her! She warded off the blows easily, taking the measure of the Man in Black. Cataloging (very quickly, because the Man in Black was very, very good) his weaknesses, even as he pressed her heels to the edge of the cliff. 

“You are most excellent!” Osgood held up a hand in defense. “Better in fact, than me.” And here she had thought MacPherson was the only Scot who knew anything about swordfighting.

He inclined his head slightly to acknowledge the great compliment. “And yet you are still smiling,” he observed, never lowering his point. “Question: why would a woman backed up against a fall to certain death by a superior duelist be smiling? Insanity unlikely. Answer:”

They spoke as one: “She is not left-handed.” And then came the lightning blade of Petronella Osgood, flashing more lightly than the moonbeams themselves. The Man in Black was driven back relentlessly, sometimes defending, sometimes merely fleeing from the brilliant onslaught, until it was his back to the cliffs. 

“You can't see it for the mask and the hood,” the Man in Black managed as Osgood pinked his shoulder, “But I am also smiling.”

“Could it be that,” and the words died in Osgood's throat somewhere between hope and despair.

“I am also not left-handed,” the Man in Black concluded, and now with the sword in his right, Osgood was beaten hopelessly back.

“What is your name?” Osgood pleaded. 

“Just an idiot passing through.”

“I must know!”

“Get used to disappointment.” This last delivered in a Scottish growl. 

“I thought you said you didn't like banter!” 

“I lied.” And with that, the Man in Black disarmed Osgood, sending the six-fingered sword flying into the dust.

“I pray you, be swift.”

“I would sooner scribble on the back of the Mona Lisa than destroy such an artist. However,” he clubbed Osgood over the head. “I want you to know that I hold you in the highest regard; perhaps under other circumstances we might have traveled together.” He struck Osgood with the hilt of his sword again, this time knocking her unconscious. He tied her with the rope, bound his own injuries, and set off after the Viking's trail.

***

“The Man in Black has defeated Osgood,” Danny announced. 

Ashildr sighed. “Untie her legs.”

“Scared yet?” Clara goaded her as the giant tore away the cords.

“Just stop him.” Ashildr watched, voice petulant, as Danny rubbed feeling back into her legs. “I don't care how: punch him, crush him; split his head open with a rock for all I care.” If she noticed him shudder at the last suggestion, she didn't express it. “Come on,” she told Clara.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the curious: "Hello, my name is Petronella Osgood. You killed my sister. Prepare to die." was one of the earliest lines to write itself. (By contrast, I agonized over my Sicilian.) Which meant I was extremely gratified to learn that book!Inigo actually does the math on how much time he spends performing various exercises, which is such a perfectly Osgood thing to do.


	8. Chapter 5: The Announcement, Part 3: Danny

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Danny's backstory, and his duel with the Man in Black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for past very-minor character death.

Danny Pink had never been a small boy. When he was seven he was five feet tall and had to shave once a week. Today he was seven-foot-five and had a light beard for most of the day even when he shaved in the morning. 

He was also very good at math. When he was seven, he was solving for 'x.' Now he was taking a graduate degree by correspondence.

He had joined the army when he was a young man. The recruitment form had asked him to list his preferred branches of service. He had put down 'engineering,' 'medical,' and 'artillery,' because there he supposed at least he would be very good at calculating the trajectories the balls from the catapults were supposed to take. 

The recruiters took one look at him and said 'infantry.'

He was good at it—of course he was good at it. He could break a cavalry charge just by holding a pike in each hand and looking menacing. He was no Osgood, but he was an unholy terror with a sword in his hands for very different reasons. But where he truly excelled was in hand-to-hand combat, in letting those massive arms and those powerful muscles really work. And once he started learning techniques from the drill instructors, it was only a fair fight with Danny on one side and the rest of his squad on the other. 

And, really, this was just as well, because his officers decided that the risk of someone losing an arm to Danny swinging away on the practice fields with even a wooden weapon was a bit high. So they reassigned him to the artillery, figuring that at least the big lunk could ratchet a ballista into place by himself. (“I do have a maths degree,” he'd reminded them to no avail.)

As it happened, his guess was entirely correct, and he was rather good at aiming his catapult as well, and soon he was operating one by himself as fast as any crew. He rather enjoyed it, as it happened. 

At least, until his first siege. They were committing a classic blunder, specifically in Afghanistan, which was such a great blunder as to warrant its own footnote. He hadn't asked what the target was; it was far enough away to be little more than a grey smudge on the horizon, with some sticky-up grey smudges he thought might be towers of some kind. Probably a fortress, or maybe a castle, he reasoned. He aimed for the closest sticky-up grey smudge, and let boulder after boulder fly. 

The next day, when they surrendered, he found out that 'they' were mostly civilians, that the grey smudge had been a walled town, and that the sticky-up grey smudges were mosques. The Viking found him there a week later, still weeping next to the shattered body of a little boy.

Ashildr had helped him make amends, rebuilding the town and burying the slain. She needed Danny, but not as much as he needed her. And so if she said that the Man in Black's head must be crushed, well, at least it had given him an idea.

“Seventeen threes are fifty-one,” he muttered, and he waited.

***

The Man in Black was startled out of his tracking by the crash of a stone against a nearby tree trunk.

“I want you to know that I could have killed you with that,” Danny informed him. The Man in Black nodded his acceptance of this fact. “I wouldn't have enjoyed it, but I could have done it.”

“I probably would have enjoyed it rather less.” A wry grin under the mask. “So, now what?”

“I drop my rock; you drop your sword.” Danny smiled.

“And then we try to kill each other like civilized people.” Trust a soldier to think of something like this, the Man in Black thinks.

“If you'd prefer the rock, _sah_.” Something about the Man in Black reminded Danny of one of his old officers. Wordlessly, the Man in Black bowed, setting down his blade as he did. Danny beamed and dropped his rock, moving to close with his foe. He lunged to grab him, thinking to squeeze the life from him.

He missed. Well, he thought, the Man in Black was small and quick; he would just have to be quicker, he decided, and aimed a punch, fast-as-lightning, at his enemy's head.

The next sensation Danny felt was that of a pair of arms wrapped around his neck. Ah, he realized belatedly, clawing at the chokehold. It's been so long since I've only fought one person. The tactics were entirely different. It took him slightly longer than it might have to realize this. That, he soon determined, was because his massive lungs were starting to run out of air. Frantically he pounded at the Man in Black's hands, but the smaller man clung to his neck like a python and his blood began to pound in his ears. 

He blacked out. The Man in Black released him just before the lack of oxygen would have been fatal and retrieved his sword. “Since I haven't got chains of adamant, I'll just have to leave you here like this. Good day.” And he left to follow the Viking with a respectful tug on his hood.


	9. Chapter 5: The Announcement, Part 4: Ashildr

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ashildr's backstory, and the battle of wits.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for (temporary) character death.

When Ashildr was fifteen, she was a storyteller in a Viking village. The villagers respected her and her father loved her. It was the only home she ever knew, or ever wanted.

When Ashildr was sixteen, she was dead. There was a raid by the Mire (the irony of Vikings being subject to a brutal raid will not be lost on the reader) and she was in the wrong place at the wrong time, or rather, her heart was, and so was a Mire arrow. 

For most people, that would be the end of the story. But Ashildr was never most people, and her father was a stubborn man. And what's more, he had heard rumors. Rumors that the Gallifreyans had mastered the science of prolonging life and so all of their people lived more than their span of years. Rumors that Mistress Rugen of Skaro was, herself, a renegade Gallifreyan. Rumors that, furthermore, Mistress Rugen was an accomplished alchemist. And so Einarr packed everything of value that he owned into saddlebags, took his horse and his daughter's corpse, and sailed to Skaro.

As it happened, the rumors were true.

Rugen laughed. “Oh, I can help your daughter. But there will be a price.”

“Name it,” Einarr begged, reaching for his bags.

“Keep your trinkets,” she told him (but only _after_ skimming through them to confirm that he hadn't stumbled across something truly valuable; she was no fool). “Your daughter will live, and live a long time, but whenever I have need of either you or her, you will come at once, and obey without hesitation, for as long as you live.” She batted her eyelashes at him like a parody of a coquette. “Do we have a deal?”

“Agreed,” Einarr told her. 

Good, the Mistress thought. I needed someone to test my new gadget on, anyway. Saves me the trouble of vanishing a peasant. 

It took a day and a night to replace Ashildr's shredded heart with the alchemical engine. It took another day and a night before blood began to flow again. And at the end of the third night, she was healthier than she'd ever been. Apart from the lack of a heart, but that was a fairly trivial detail to someone like Rugen, who coolly extracted the same promise of unconditional service from Ashildr.

Fifty years passed. Einarr died and his daughter burned his body, a sixty-six year old woman in the body of a teenager. She hated the Mistress, but a Viking's word was her bond, and a life debt was a life debt. The fact that she had been blessed (cursed) with so much of it was a fairly trivial detail to someone like Ashildr. 

She didn't see Rugen again after the surgery, not in person, anyway. But the Mistress certainly knew how to find her, and offered her job after well-paid job, each one dirtier than the last, always reminding her of the debt she owed. And so when Mistress Rugen said that Princess Clara had to die in Gallifrey, well, who was Ashildr to argue?

She could never escape the Man in Black, not even with her head start. The calm, rational part of her brain knew that, deep as anything. Not with a princess in tow, and not with how short her legs were. Well, she thought, you have beaten Osgood's sword and Danny's brawn. Let us see how you fare against cleverness and intelligence.

“So, this is it, then?” Clara asked as Ashildr forced her to spread out a cloth and cover it with two goblets of wine, two plates of bread and cheese, and a few odd pieces of fruit. “My last meal?”

“One last contest,” Ashildr corrected her, jotting something on the palm of her hand. “To decide who will get you, and who will die.” 

That told Clara something she wanted to know: the Viking still wanted her alive. Combined with something else she already knew, that the Viking gave up a good six inches to her, she decided it was the perfect time to strike.

“Don't try that again,” Ashildr cautioned her, deflecting her attack with ease and pinning her. “Next time I might not be able to keep from injuring you.”

“How?..” Clara asked, bewildered.

“I've had a long time to practice certain useful skills. Hand to hand combat, for instance.”

“How long can a girl like you have had to practice anything?”

“Too long,” replied Ashildr pityingly. “Go on, sit. We may as well relax. Not a word from you, either, when he arrives. Speaking of which,” she looked to the edge of the moonlit clearing, “Welcome!” she called. 

“Give her to me,” the Man in Black replied.

“Right to the point; I like it!” she laughed. “Why do you want her so badly?”

“Ransom, mostly. And she probably has some intrinsic value.”

“She is said to be the most beautiful woman in the world,” Ashildr purred.

“Is she?” The Man in Black seemed genuinely baffled by this pronouncement. “I hadn't noticed.”

Clearly not dealing with a connoisseur, Ashildr thought. “At any rate, we both want the princess and obviously we cannot both have her.” This is her idea of cleverness and intelligence? Clara thought to herself, trying not to move with the knife blade against her throat. “Therefore, I propose a battle of wits.”

The Man in Black accepted with a throaty growl. He produced a small tin, removing the lid with gloved fingers. “Open it and inhale, but do not touch.”

“I smell nothing.”

“That which you do not smell is iocane powder. It is completely odorless, tasteless, and dissolves instantly with no residue in any liquid. It is also the deadliest poison known to man.” He took the goblets of wine, turned away from the Viking for a long, tense moment. When he turned back, the tin was empty. One goblet was before the Viking, and one was before the Man in Black. “And so the battle of wits is joined. Your guess: in which goblet is the poison?” 

“I don't guess,” Ashildr declaimed. “I reason, I intuit, I _know people_. The only question is whether you are the sort of man who puts the poison in his enemy's glass, or his own.”

“You're a pudding brain.”

“I'm savoring my dessert,” she countered.

The Man in Black tuned out the rest of her ramblings, as he had a tendency to do when it wasn't his turn in the conversation, and anyway she seemed to be enjoying herself. He remembered to look increasingly nervous as she waffled back and forth. He tried to keep his eyes from Clara; that was the most difficult part.

“Why, what is that?” the Viking blurted out. Genuinely taken by surprise, the Man in Black looked over his shoulder. “Oh, it was just a trick of the light.” She smiled sweetly.

“Are you quite ready yet?”

“Let's drink; I've never feared death.” She picked up her own cup. The Man in Black took his. They drank.

“I'm afraid you guessed wrong.” 

“If only I hadn't switched the goblets while your back was turned.” She was the epitome of patronizing.

Sweat beaded up on the Man in Black's face. 

“Sadly, you fell victim to one of the classic blunders. The most famous, of course, is 'never get involved in a land war in Asia,' but only slightly less well known is: 'Never go against a Viking when _death_ is on the line!'” That was when the iocane powder took effect, and she crumpled to the ground.

“To think,” Clara observed as he cut her free with his knife, “the poison was in your own cup all along.”

“I poisoned both cups,” he told her coldly. “I just spent the past two years building up an immunity to iocane powder.” And with that, he led her speedily away.

Cheater! Ashildr thought. Of course, to be completely honest (she never was), she had spent the past sixty years testing the limits of the alchemical engine in her ribcage which had stopped her aging, healed any wound, and, yes, reversed the effect of any poison. Now she just had to wait for the poison to be purged from her system, for the healing process to take effect (hopefully it would take long enough), and go back to the start...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And this is one of the big changes from the original storyline. Hope you enjoy.


	10. Chapter 5: The Announcement (Part 5)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Man in Black's identity is revealed (spoiler alert: not the Valeyard) and the Fire Swamp is traversed.

“Who are you?” Clara asked, breathing hard as the Man in Black pulled him along. 

“No-one to be trifled with,” the Man in Black rejoined, tugging her along faster still.

“What are we running from? You killed them, didn't you?” 

“Davros.” He uttered the name like a curse. “Your beloved betrothed.” He doesn't answer her second question; she noticed.

“Betrothed, maybe,” she gasped. “Beloved, never.” Even with staying in pretty fair shape, she's struggling to keep up, but her pride doesn't let her complain. “What did I ever do to you?”

“You betrayed me. You betrayed my trust, you betrayed everything I ever stood for! _You let me down!_ ”

“Then why not just let them kill me?” she asked, while racking her brain to think who, in all her travels, she could have harmed so.

“Why? Do you really think I care for you so little that betraying me would make a difference?”

“Who are you?” Clara pleaded, brain struggling with the breakneck place and the late hour.

“You can't see me, can you?” They finally pause on the crest of a hill, overlooking a ravine, and that overlooking the Gallifrey Channel, filled with Skaro's navy. “You...you look at me and you can't see me. Do you have any idea what that's like?”

She stared at him, lit by the lanterns of a thousand ships, wondering gaze piercing him. She cannot fathom what he is talking about or who he might be.

“But why,” asked the most beautiful woman in the kingdom, stomping her foot. “Why are you doing this?” Her grey-haired captor simply stood mute, almost as if uncertain. But what could cause the Man in Black, who had already defeated the Englishwoman, the Moor, and the Viking, to hesitate at a moment like this? 

Something snapped inside Clara, and she poured her frustration into a single shove, catching the Man in Black utterly by surprise, and more than a little off-balance, and he stumbled and fell down the ravine to the Fire Swamps below. 

Her heart nearly stopped when she heard three words echoing up at her.

“Duty!... Of!... Care!...”

“Basil!” she cried, and without a thought, she threw herself over the edge after him.

***

“There isn't going to be any more kissing, is there?” Quinn preempts.

“What Basil and Clara do when they reunite— _privately_ —at the bottom of the ravine is something that you can find out about when you're older,” Clara deflects. Morgenstern had been writing for _them_ , after all—they had only thought about it as a bedtime story after the fact.

“Now, I think it's perfectly acceptable to raise this in an age-appropriate fashion.”

“Which is lovely, and probably healthy, and absolutely the sort of decision their mothers should be making,” Clara hisses. “Oh, hello, Adalia! Speak of the devil.”

“You're my mother-in-law; shouldn't I be saying that to you?” she teases.

The Doctor waves an elegant hello. “We were just reading to the small ones.”

“Oh, is that _The Companion Bride_?” She squeals. “I used to love it when you would read that to Hermione and me when we were little girls.” She elbows Clara. “Almost made putting up with your cooking worthwhile.”

“Oi!” Sadly, Clara knows, her love for cooking vastly outstrips her ability. She feels even more pathetic next to the Doctor, who, to be fair, has spent the last twenty centuries hobnobbing with gourmet chefs from across history. “You liked dinner tonight, didn't you, kids?” Caught between Grannie and Mama, the children maintain a diplomatic silence.

“Don't mind me,” Adalia flashes a toothy grin. “Long day at the office. Mind if I just lie back and listen for a while?”

“We were just getting to the Fire Swamp,” the Doctor says in a delightfully ominous tone.

***

As it happened, neither Basil nor Clara had no idea that they were racing headlong toward the Fire Swamp. They knew only that, even if it was possible for them to make the climb up the walls of the ravine, they would lose far too much time in the climbing. And so wherever the ravine led them, there they were bound, but as they were bound there together, this did not concern them overmuch. 

But once they reached the border of the Fire Swamp, there was no mistaking it. “Oh, no,” Basil muttered. “The Fire Swamp.”

“They used to threaten us about this when I was a girl.”

“Me too.” He coughed. “You know what I mean.”

“It always looked much scarier in my dreams,” she opined, but she did not draw any closer.

“Clara, take my hand.”

“I'm not scared.”

“I am.” He took her hand. “And besides, we'll do well to stick together.” In fact, as soon as he saw some sturdy-looking vines, he took his sword and cut a length of it to tie them together. “How's that, then, Clara?” he asked, for he always did better before an audience. Preferably her. 

Clara would have deeply loved to have complimented his choice of vines, or at least ragged him gently about it while secretly being rather proud of him for spotting them in the dark. But at the moment she was falling into the Lightning Sand. 

Now would probably be a good time to mention the three dangers of the Fire Swamp: the flame spurts which give the swamp its name, the R.O.U.S.s, about which more later, and the Lightning Sand. 

Lightning Sand is light, powdery stuff, the finest sand you can imagine, and already it flooded into Clara's nose and ears, dry as death. She spread her arms and legs, trying desperately to flatten herself out as wide as possible (no mean feat given her size) to slow her descent and all the while hold her breath against the clamor of the sand.

Basil realized at once what had happened and in no time at all had the vine lashed to a tree trunk and dove headlong into the sand after her, kicking like mad to speed himself along. There was no question of failure. He would find Clara, haul them back to the surface, and that would be that. Then he ran out of vine.

To anyone else, to release the vine would be madness. There would be no way to find it again, no way to get back to the surface without it, no way even to get back up to it once it was lost. Without hesitating, Basil let go of the vine, still kicking down. In the beat of two hearts, he had Clara by the hand, and they kicked for the surface; his other hand unerringly found the vine, and almost before they realized it, they were back on dry (well, swampy) ground, gasping for air.

“We lived,” Clara managed. “Now, how are we going to win? Please tell me you have a plan.”

“Of course I have a plan. Mind you, that plan didn't include trekking through the Fire Swamp. But really, it's not that bad. After all, what are the three terrors of the Fire Swamp?”

“The Lightning Sand, the flame spurts, and the R.O.U.S.s,” Clara recited.

Now, we've got this nice, strong vine tying us together at the wrists,” he gave her his knife in its sheath so she could help cut through the swamp while he used his sword, “so we won't have to worry about the Lightning Sand. As long as we pay attention, we can hear the popping noise before the flame spurts.”

“What about the Rodents of Unusual Size?”

“I don't think they exist,” he scoffed just before one dove from the trees at him. Eighty pounds of bloodthirsty rat tried desperately to sink its fangs into his shoulder. With a yell, he rolled over to force the thing into a flame spurt, setting its matted fur on fire. With a scream, it skittered away. Two more approached; Clara slashed at one with Basil's knife while he dispatched the second with his sword. Another crept out from the bushes, but set upon its wounded kinsman. She shuddered, and helped Basil bind his wounded shoulder.

“You were saying about your plan,” she changed the subject, wiping the knife clean on a bit of moss.

He nodded. “At the far end of the Fire Swamp is anchored the Revenge, the ship of the Dread Pirate Roberts.”

Clara gasped. “The ship of the man who I thought killed you years ago? The man who broke my heart?”

“As you can see, I am still alive.” 

“Not for long if you don't explain. Pronto.” She jabbed a finger into his bony side.

“You see, I am the Dread Pirate Roberts.” Clara raised a suspicious eyebrow at him. “When the Dread Pirate Roberts captured my ship, he put the rest of the passengers and the crew to death. He spared me, perhaps because I asked him please not to. He asked why he should make an exception for me, and I told him about you, how I had vowed to seek my fortune, how you were the most wonderful woman in the world. Rather talked his ear off about you, until I convinced him of the depth of my love.” He chuckled. “He told me that it would never do, that if word got out that I'd let you live and gone soft, that will be the end of my career; once they stop fearing you, piracy is just work, work, work. I promised I wouldn't breathe a word to anyone, even you, and that I would be his personal slave for five years, and that if I ever complained or gave him cause to find fault, he could cut my head off and I would die praising his generosity.” He shrugged. “Needless to say, he accepted. 'Go below,' he told me. 'I shall most likely kill you in the morning.'”

“Trifle kinky, if you ask me,” Clara observed, hopping nimbly out of the way of a flame spurt. “Go on.”

Basil pretended to clear his throat. “You know I never need much sleep, and I was planning on working twenty hours a day to earn my fortune anyway. So I applied myself with my usual industry, helping out wherever they'd let me, learning as much as I could. And every morning the Dread Pirate Roberts would greet me with 'Well, I've come to kill you.' And I would thank him for his generosity, especially as how I had learned so much. 'In one day?' he asked, amazed. 'For starters, I learned that no-one has ever taught your cook the difference between Parmesan cheese and marzipan, or between marinara sauce and Tabasco: don't eat the lasagna.” Clara giggled. [Adalia snorts; Clara makes an offended noise.] “'Well,' the Dread Pirate Roberts gagged, 'that explains rather a lot. Good night, Basil; I shall most likely kill you in the morning.' It went on like that for a year, him cheerily threatening to kill me, me mastering the arts of piracy, until at the end of the first year he took me on as his second-in-command.”

“Hmm,” Clara mused. “Well, now that we're together again, don't commit any more acts of piracy.”

“Don't commit any more acts of piracy what?” he teased.

“Don't commit any more acts of piracy without me.” She grinned. “We could be pirates together! I'd make a good pirate.” She brandished the knife menacingly.

“You would make an excellent pirate,” Basil countered. “Goodness has nothing to do with it.” A somber moment. “Still, it was the only way I could see to stay alive and get rich enough to deserve you.”

“Deserve me?”

A low, gruff chuckle. “Well, I am told that you are the most beautiful woman in the world.”

“You really hadn't noticed, had you?” She's weirdly flattered by this. “You're such an idiot sometimes.” She twined her hand fondly in his. Really, they do deserve each other, each so like the other.

“Idiot maybe, but I still managed to learn quite a lot about sailing, fencing, fighting—all sorts of things. And I was in top physical condition. As it happened, I was rather good at piracy. Finally the Dread Pirate Roberts told me that I was going to be in charge of the next raid. I was rather proud of this up until the point when they got into hailing distance and asked who I was. 'Basil,' I told them. 'Never heard of him,' they replied.”

“Just as well you didn't tell them your last name or they'd just have laughed,” Clara teased.

“We're definitely giving the children your surname,” Mr. Funkenstein agreed. (It was a traditional Gallifreyan name.) “As I was saying, they didn't fear me in the slightest, opened fire, rallied their defenses, and got away scot free. After the battle, Roberts pulled me aside and swore me to secrecy. 'I am not the Dread Pirate Roberts; my name is Smith. The first Dread Pirate Roberts is long dead, after many years luxurious retirement. He took to piracy, and was so successful at it that within a few years he decided to hang it up. But the whole Dread Pirate Roberts business seemed too good to give up entirely, and at any rate, his name wasn't even Roberts, it was Hartnell. So he took his first mate, a man named Troughton, aside, and together they made their plan. At the next port, they offloaded the crew, took on a fresh batch of sailors, and told them that Troughton was Roberts. Hartnell stayed on for a few voyages as the mate, saluting and telling everyone how brilliant Roberts was before retiring with his share of the goods. And it went much the same for the next few years until Troughton had had quite enough of the thieving and plundering, left his first mate, Pertwee, in charge of the Dread Pirate Roberts business in much the same way, and ran off with his bosun. And so it went until the previous Dread Pirate Roberts, who was actually a man named Tennant, pulled me aside and swore me to secrecy. The last I saw of him, he had retired to peace and tranquility; some little town named Broadchurch.”

“Hang on,” Clara interrupted, “So the original Dread Pirate Roberts wasn't even named Roberts?”

“Guess he just liked the name.” Basil shrugged. “As my immediate predecessor would say, it sounds cool.”

“Has got a bit of a ring to it.” She stroked her chin with the hand lashed to Basil's, drawing it uncomfortably near to her. “So could I become the Dread Pirate Roberts someday? Or anyone, really? Because if you aren't leaving any survivors and you fool the crew, who's to say the Dread Pirate Roberts isn't a woman?”

“You're the boss,” Basil said agreeably, knowing far better than to argue with Clara, let alone when she was holding a sharp object.

And so passed the next five hours as they crossed the Fire Swamp, each darker and more deadly than the last. 

But on the other side of the Fire Swamp stood Prince Davros. His armada had flushed the Revenge and chased her out to sea. His horsemen blocked the entire mouth of the ravine, Mistress Rugen at their head. And before the entire array, Davros in his chariot. 

“Thank you for returning the princess to me; I accept your surrender.”

Basil squeezed Clara's hand. “No one is surrendering. I mean to win. If you want us, you'll have to come into the Fire Swamp. We're used to it, aren't we?”

“Yes, absolutely,” Clara bluffed. But she didn't like the look of this, not with the Revenge fleeing and the two of them alone and exhausted. She eyed the row of crossbows being leveled at them.

“But I doubt your men will follow us too readily. By nightfall, we'll be gone.”

“Ah, the unchanged arrogance.” A dry laugh. “I doubt that very much.”

“Clara,” he turns to her, “It's not too late; we can still run away somewhere, together.” Smile for me, he thinks.

“Wouldn't that be nice.” She smiles that sad, beautiful smile, the one that tugged at his heartstrings. “Still, as last hurrahs go, this was pretty special.”

“Scenic boat ride, friendly picnic, jaunt through a local landmark? Beat that for a date.” He laughed faintly, grimly. He took her hand and kissed it.

“Will you promise not to hurt him,” she called to Davros, never taking her eyes from Basil. “If I go back to you and all is as it was before, will you promise not to hurt him? Will you send him back to the ship of the Dread Pirate Roberts, where he is a humble sailor?” No sense risking the temptation to hang the most notorious pirate in the world.

“I promise on my father's life and my mother's grave.”

“Stay with me,” he pleaded.

“I can live without love,” she whispered. “I can't live without you, without knowing that somewhere, you are alive.” A strangled sob. “I will always, always love you.”

Davros, meanwhile, was calculating. He had been tracking Basil, Clara, and the others in the fine chariot, had seen the traces of the great battles. Had surmised that this man had out-dueled a chevalier, had out-grappled a giant, and had out-foxed a Viking. Had come to the conclusion that perhaps he might serve as the template for his ultimate warrior race. “Mistress, when we are out of sight, take that man and put him in the fifth level of the Zoo of Death.” Yes, he thought, he will make a good Dalek.

“And for a moment I thought you were telling the truth.”

“I will not harm him. I shall merely observe as you torture him.” Davros managed a tight grin as Clara approached.

“So,” Basil asked as Rugen approached him. “What are you going to do to me? And don't lie. We've told enough of those, haven't we?” he asked wearily.

“We're going to have such fun,” she beamed, and walloped him over the head with her sword hand. 

Though the fact had never seemed important to him before, now, Basil could not help but notice that the hand had six fingers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here, at long last, is the scene which sparked this entire mess. Hope you enjoy. 
> 
> Also, why yes, that is a Two/Jamie nod.


	11. Chapter 6: The Festivities (Part 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Osgood, Danny, and Ashildr go back to the start.
> 
> Basil's mind goes to Clara.
> 
> And Clara is going sailing.

In Skaro, the people were convinced of three things: that Gallifrey was probably behind the kidnapping attempt and couldn't be trusted, that Clara was incredibly brave for surviving the ordeal, especially the Fire Swamp, and that Davros was actually a rather decent fellow for taking care of the whole business.

Meanwhile, in Gallifrey...

Osgood woke, tied up and alone. Slowly, slowly, the details of the duel with the Man in Black seeped into her skull (or was that just the mucus? She needed to give her amulet a rub; it had been hours). She wriggled over to the six-fingered sword, and then it was just a matter of using the keen edge to slice through her bonds.

She stood, flexing her stiff muscles. “What now?” she asked the air. Go back to the start, Ashildr had said. And in this case, the start was the Thieves Quarter of Skaro City, where Ashildr had gotten the job for them. Where Ashildr had met with their mysterious employer and where they had planned the entire caper. So to the Thieves Quarter she was bound.

Elsewhere...

Danny groaned, or tried to, as his hands came up to massage his still-sore throat. He ran through times-tables until he could speak again. “Petronella? Ashildr? Petronella, I'm here!” he called. He remembered the cliff, and traced his tracks backwards to their sheer heights. Nothing. Then he remembered: Ashildr had gone ahead with the princess, and he needed to catch up with her. Maybe Petronella had already done so, he hoped. He followed the path until he came to an abandoned spread of food. There was no-one there. He was alone...

Earlier...

Ashildr gasped: the alchemical engine had done its job. But she had definitely been dead—distinctly dead—for quite some time. Hopefully more than long enough to convince the Man in Black, and, assuming Mistress Rugen and Prince Davros were trailing them (and she would have been astounded if they had not been), the Skaroan nobles as well. She lay silently, waiting for the rigor mortis to wear off. That was new, she thought. She hadn't been dead before—that was new. Iocane was deadly stuff, nearly a match for the engine in her chest. “Well,” she said aloud, “a life debt is a life debt, and a promise is a promise. But those promises have been fulfilled, I think.” Who was she trying to convince? Herself? Yes, actually, she admitted. She'd served Rugen for so long that even such disobedience as she'd managed seemed nearly impossible. But now... She stood. Now she was going to kill her erstwhile employer. She'd have to move carefully, and quietly, in order to keep up the pretense of her death, and that meant slowly. But, she thought, she'd learned patience. Now, back to the start... 

Later...

Osgood had made her way to the Thieves' Quarter. Neither Ashildr nor Danny were there. This troubled her slightly. It would have troubled her more, but she was more concerned about having lost to the Man in Black. Bested by someone she had never heard of? And no closer to finding the six-fingered woman. Alone and a failure. Again. 

Just as when Ashildr had found her before. Well, that was easily remedied, she thought. All she had to do wait until Ashildr found her again. She brightened. And perhaps a bit of brandy to soothe her nerves as she waited, she thought. Yes, that would do nicely; she laid her money down and took the bottle, and from the bottle took a gulp... 

***

Basil awoke, chained to a table in a cage. The cage was somewhere deep underground, if the dank, dark air was anything to go by. The albino was tending his shoulder, which was good because he was fairly certain it was starting to fester. “Hello,” he attempted. No response save a thin hiss. “Who are you?” Hiss. “Why am I here?” Hiss. “Well, this is going bloody nowhere fast.” Hiss.

Basil sighed. “Look, could you say something? I don't care what, but I'm being bored to tears.” A hiss closer to a laugh. He tried again. “Who knows I'm here?” 

“They know.” 

“The Prince and the Mistress?” Nod. “So much for the bastards who carried me in, then.” Nod, hiss. The albino was responsible for feeding the animals, after all. “Are they going to kill me?” No response. He closed his eyes and pictured Clara. Smiling, brilliant Clara. He grinned, which seriously disconcerted the albino. They were back, sitting underneath the tree behind the farmhouse, Clara writing on her slate. “I'm still alive.”

Obviously, she wrote.

“They are, in fact, going to some trouble to keep me alive.”

Just as glad, really.

“Which of course, suggests that they want me for some other reason.” Clara nods. “Probably not good, since Davros knows I love you, and you love me.” 

Doubtless.

He paced beneath the tree. “He promised not to hurt me.” More pacing; Clara looked at him haughtily, as though he had forgotten something obvious. “But the Mistress didn't; has, in fact, given me quite the goose egg. Right, not saying that again,” he added after Clara's giggle. “Hypothesis: Mistress Rugen wants to hurt me very badly, in every sense of that word. Probably at Davros's command. But then, maybe not.”

And? The single word was underlined.

“Secrecy,” Basil added. “Four people know I'm here, including me. Which means, presumably, they don't want anyone else to know I am here. Especially not you. Which means they want you to think I'm alive, safe, and not tearing the world apart to find you.”

Good, she wrote. 

“Which means you have something to lose: your true love. Which means you can be controlled.”

Impossible otherwise. “Don't I know it.” He managed a laugh. “So they need both of us alive and under control for two separate, very bad reasons.”

He had just enough time to see Clara nod before he was snapped back to reality. “I know what you've been doing,” Mistress Rugen informed him with jovial menace. “You've been sending your mind away. To her, most likely.” How long had he been here, he wondered. Had they been torturing him? She pouted. “You even ignored the Zoo of Death greetings package.” He spat. She favored him with a deranged grin. “It's not going to work against the Machine.” She planted a kiss on his forehead before leaving. Basil, for the first time, began to be afraid.

***

Clara was not so untroubled as Basil. Even the most pleasant festivities seemed to designed to drain her spirits, and when she slept nightmares took her in her lonely bed. She was even bereft of such companionship as Davros might have provided; the Emperor's health had worsened and he was struggling to master the running of the country before he was forced onto the throne. Clara, too, was given accelerated tutoring in everything that would be expected of her so that when the wedding happened one morning, it was late that afternoon before she had even realized what had happened, and only then because Davros called her out to the balcony to present her to the masses as his wife.

Her eyes swept dizzyingly over the crowd as they cheered. “Gran?”

“Boo!” Clara blinked. “Boooooo!”

“Gran, I'm going to be Queen!” But she didn't feel anything as she said this.

“But you won't have true love,” her grandmother countered, and booed again for good measure. “Queen of muck is all you'll be. Queen of filth!” She advanced towards Clara. “You let true love slip away in the Fire Swamp for money and fame. Queen of slime! Queen of refuse! Booooo!”

Clara woke screaming. [Both grandchildren gasp with surprise. Clara grins and plans a lecture on unreliable narrators.] The wedding was still sixty days away. “I can't do this,” she admitted to herself in the mirror. “Yes, I can. I can absolutely do this.” She shuddered and sent for a basin of water. 

She lasted ten more days with the nightmares.

“Prince Davros, I must have a moment of your time.” The councilors and the toadies in the room looked at her, still projecting that fearsome aura, and left. “When first you demanded my hand, I told you I would sooner die. I was telling the truth then. If I marry you, knowing that Basil is still alive, I shall surely die in agony. Either release me from my promise or, I beg of you, run me through now and spare me the torment.”

Davros considered his words, eyes invisible in their sunken sockets. “Though even from the beginning our marriage was to be a loveless one, I am not without fondness for you,” and, indeed, things had warmed somewhat between them over the past weeks, though given how things stood after the Fire Swamp, it was impossible that they should grow colder, ”Further, no matter what you may think of me, I am not without mercy or honor.” Clara nodded; she would never love Davros, but she was beginning to tentatively trust him. “Therefore, I will not stand in the way of you marrying your love.”

“God bless you for your kindness,” Clara murmured. 

“But,” Davros began.

“But?” She would leave the castle, she would find Basil, she would marry Basil. There was no other option.

“Have you considered the possibility that he may no longer wish to marry you?” 

She had not. The gravelly rasp tore through her.

“May I propose a compromise: my four fastest ships will scour the oceans for the Dread Pirate Roberts under flag of truce, bearing four copies of whatever letter you should care to write. Then the decision will be up to him; if he wishes to marry you, I shall not stand between you. Otherwise, I do hope that you will do me the honor of wedding me. Until then, I shall hope you will remain here.”

Clara had not, in truth, anticipated such an offer from someone like Davros, which made her distrust it after a moment's shock. But she did not know that she could expect a superior offer, nor that she would be able to force Davros to do anything more. At any rate she was still too stunned by the image of Basil marrying anyone else to invent anything better. “I accept your gracious offer, my prince,” she replied at last, and departed to write her letter.

Yes, Davros thought as he watched her depart, this was the way to do it. Not that having the Viking girl take care of things wouldn't have worked, but after the 'foiled kidnapping attempt,' no-one would doubt that Gallifrey would be responsible for the new Queen's death on her wedding night, not with the increased affection he had been showing her, and his tragic tale of how he had been just too late to stop the assassins, but had seen their Gallifreyan robes as they fled. And, of course, it would be much easier to recover her body this way, for his experiments. Yes, his super-soldier would have beauty to match its strength after all. 

***

Back in her own rooms, Clara began composing her letter, pouring the depth of her passion out like ink upon the paper. She described how she loved his dry sense of humor, his surprising tenderness, his fiery intellect, his distinguished looks. She littered it with literary and historical references, especially to their favorite tales. And she concluded it by writing, “Basil, my love, words cannot express how wrong I was to leave you. Please, I beg of you, return to me. With all my love, Clara.”

“He must be very special to you,” Davros noted from the door.

Clara gasped with surprise—so engrossed had she been that she did not even notice his approach. 

“Oh, he is far from perfect,” she admitted, thinking of his obsessiveness, his pride, his temper. “But his faults are mine.” And she began recounting, just as she had written, all of Basil's virtues. She felt herself falling in love with him afresh. “I have to go,” she said as she realized it. There was at least one thing better than sending a mere letter, after all. 

“No, please, allow me,” Davros replied gallantly, thinking he had intruded. 

Clara wrinkled her nose. “It's not that I don't appreciate the offer, it's just, well, I don't think Basil would be too happy to see you. No, it'd really best be me.”

“I beg your pardon?” Basil again, he thought. He was really starting to detest that man.

“Why, sailing on your fastest ship, of course.” She fluttered her eyelashes at him, turning on the charm offensive as if nothing had happened. “I certainly can't just sit here and wait for him to come to me.”

“But we have a wedding to plan,” Davros pleaded. “And the sea is so treacherous.” This was not going according to plan, not at all. He could hardly afford to sacrifice a ship to kill the princess, not with an imminent war with Gallifrey. That meant waiting until she returned, assuming she was not lost at sea in an accident. 

“My _dear_ prince, I am certain that you are more than capable of planning a mere wedding. After all, a farm girl—I beg your pardon, the provincial Princess of Blackpool—is far more comfortable with the rough seas and sailors than with determining which duchess shall sit next to which earl. And, lest you forget, I was kidnapped in Skaro.”

“How can I refuse?” he asked, helplessly. Well, he mused, this would allow him to focus his energies on creating his super-soldier in advance of the war. After all, he finally had the right base to start with. Far from harming her dear Basil, he would be perfecting him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had forgotten how perfect Westley sending his mind away to Buttercup scans with the Doctor's mind palace. 
> 
> Also I hope people are as fond of one of the lines in this section as I am.


	12. Chapter 6: The Festivities (Part 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Mistress puts the Machine together.
> 
> Sarff puts a Brute Squad together.
> 
> Clara puts two and two together.
> 
> Ashildr puts the band back together.
> 
> Davros is not in the least put together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoiler alert for a thirty year old movie and a forty year old book: this is where Basil dies. Agonizingly, but I don't dwell on the details. 
> 
> Also a dog dies. Sorry.

With Clara sailing the high seas, Davros had even less time than he thought he would. It was true that he no longer had to bill and coo over her (tasks to which he was ill-suited at the outset), but he could no longer delegate anything to her. She did have an intelligent head with a willful soul to match her beauty; perhaps he _could_ incorporate more of her into his perfect hybrid warrior.

But the upshot was that he had not done nearly enough to frame Gallifrey with only a few weeks before the marriage. Time to delegate matters, he mused, and summoned Sarff. Sarff was the albino's first cousin; they were some of the very few people Davros trusted. Sarff was also the Chief of Enforcement in Skaro City.

“Sarff,” Davros announced, “I have heard word that Gallifreyans have been hiding in the Thieves' Quarter of Skaro City. Perhaps with my navy at full strength, I might have detected them, but how could I begrudge my beloved fiancee my four fastest ships?” 

“What would you have me do?” Sarff glided closer. He was a small, slippery man. Frankly, he thought Davros was overdoing it. It didn't suit him.

“Assemble a brute squad. Clear the Thieves' Quarter. Arrest everyone there, lock them up until after my wedding.”

“You fear they will try something since they failed to kidnap the Princess before,” Sarff intuited. Davros nodded.

That was when the scream began. Chilling was a cliché understatement. Bloodcurdling didn't come close. Even Davros was rather upset by it. Nobody who heard it wanted to imagine what had caused it. But if they could track it, it would lead to the Zoo of Death, and there to the only person who could hear it and was downright thrilled.

“It works!” Mistress Rugen cried. “The Machine works!” She skipped with glee around the corpse of the stray dog. She shrieked, she laughed, she cackled. She composed herself. Prince Davros must know.

***

It had taken her the best part of a month, but Clara counted that as no time at all. She had found the Revenge. “Raise the flag of truce,” she ordered, “and approach.” None dared gainsay her. “Ahoy the Revenge!” 

“You know we are the ship of the Dread Pirate Roberts,” came the reply, “and he takes no prisoners.”

“Then fight us if you must,” Clara cried, drawing her sword. “But I must treat with Roberts if it kills me.”

Waves crashed. Flags fluttered. But there was no response from the Revenge until a small cough. “He is not here.”

“Sorry, what?” The tip of the sword dipped in disbelief. 

“He is not here.”

“Basil, if you are hiding from me, I shall maim you.” The tears have begun to flow. “He is my true love, he must be there.”

The pirate who had been speaking to her looked awkwardly at the helmsman. He didn't particularly want to engage the best ship in Skaro's navy without the fear inspired by his captain. “My lady, you can inspect every board on this ship if you please. But the Dread Pirate Roberts is...on sabbatical. He has not been aboard in almost two months.”

She took the pirate up on his offer; how could she not? She has come so far. The pirates gave her a wide berth, as she was still holding a saber and looking rather unhinged. But there was not one gray hair of her beloved. 

***

It took the Mistress the best part of a day just to attach the Machine to Basil. There were suction cups for every surface of his body from the tips of his toes to his eyebrows. As she worked, she explained the device. “It draws your soul out of your body. The first setting will draw out one year, and we can adjust upward as needed.” She paused to tousle his hair. “Of course, if you just agreed to be my friend again...” Stony silence. Basil had been fond of her once, back before they had both fled Gallifrey. He knew what being her friend entailed, and he wanted no part of it. 

She rolled her eyes. “You always have to be the hero, don't you? Fine.” She took up parchment and pen. “For posterity then, how are you feeling?”

“Felt better.” He was already sending his mind off to Clara, the way he had done for the previous tortures.

“It won't work,” the Mistress said enigmatically, and, with the dial set to '1,' pulled the lever.

He was just about to the lake where they used to walk when the Machine tore a scream from the depths of his being. The Mistress grinned coldly. “That's one,” she chirped. “Perhaps we'll try two next time!” But Basil just hung limply in the restraints. [Clara spares a look at the children, but they are both far too engrossed in the story to comment.]

***

As cold and efficient as Sarff was, it still took him some time to obtain a proper brute squad. But once he had, he swept through the Thieves' Quarter. Most of them either fled or were taken. But even after a week, there were still a few holdouts, and it was these that Sarff now had to deal with. “Who's next?” he hissed.

“The drunken Englishwoman,” said one brute. 

Sarff stared coldly at him. “Take the big one and another with you and deal with her as best you see fit.” The three brutes trundled off to find the Englishwoman.

She was the only patron at the bar—indeed, the only person, the staff having cleared out days ago—and was helping herself to whiskey. She had the bottle in one hand, a glass in the other; leaving no hands for the sword at her side. She turned to the brutes. “Ashildr, is that you? I went back to the start. I waited for you. I waited for six weeks, Ashildr.” She blinked through her glasses. “Why are there three of you, Ashildr?”

“This is going to be fun,” said one brute.

“Dibs on her sword,” added the second.

“Three sixes is eighteen, Osgood,” whispered the third. 

Glassy eyes met his. “Danny?” 

“Osgood!” The woman in question started to sway, and the two smaller brutes rushed her. One was met by a fist the size of two hams; the other by a woman of approximately the same mass who darted out from the shadows with a poisoned dagger.

“Osgood! Danny!” Ashildr sheathed the dagger. “Good to see you again.” Osgood passed out. Ashildr rolled her eyes. “Let's get her cleaned up.”

“Sorry,” Osgood apologized later. “It's just, well, I've been doing nothing but waiting and drinking for the past six weeks. It was a bit of a shock on an empty stomach.” Her brow furrowed. “How did you know to find us here?”

“I had hoped you would get back to the Thieves' Quarter. Sadly, I was too busy pretending to be dead to get too close to Skaro City. I admit I was stumped for a moment. But then I heard that Davros wanted the Thieves' Quarter cleared, and was raising a brute squad. So I made sure Danny found a brute squad recruiting poster.” She tapped the side of her head and averted her eyes as Osgood purged herself of the better part of a bottle of cheap whiskey. The Englishwoman wiped her lips and nodded, then fell back over. It was the best part of a day before they managed to nurse her into something resembling the Osgood of old.

“So, what do we do?”

Ashildr grinned. Now it was time for her plan—which was, if not her best, then still quite good for having been cooked up in the middle of a kidnapping which turned abruptly into an attempted murder—to come to fruition. She can remember most of it, which is good. “Osgood, what is the thing you want most?”

“To kill the six-fingered woman.”

“You mean like Mistress Rugen?” Danny inquired. “She came by once to give orders to the brutes.” 

Ashildr grinned as Osgood salivated. “And Danny, what do you hate most?”

“War.” There was a distant look in his eye.

“You mean like the one Rugen and Davros want to start with Gallifrey?” Osgood remembered.

“I'd almost forgotten.” He'd been distracted by Clara's threats to kill herself. “And what about you?” he asked Ashildr.

“I have my own reasons for wanting to kill the Mistress,” she explained, more or less. “And so does the Man in Black.” The others raised their eyebrows. “Come on, you're both reasonably intelligent. wasn't it obvious? He clearly values Princess Clara's life. And Davros has her.” 

“So we find the Man in Black?” Osgood began.

“Get into the castle past the hundred guards in front of the only open gate,” Danny continued, because he had seen something of the defenses. 

“Kill the Mistress.”

“Stop a war.”

“And live happily ever after,” Ashildr concluded. 

***

Clara wasn't quite as intelligent or educated as Basil. But she was clever and devious and she had almost two weeks to think on the voyage back to Skaro.

“You lied to me.” She pushed past Sarff, who was detailing how he had sealed every entrance to the palace save the main gate, and that he had manned with a hundred men.

“You'll have to be more specific than that; I am in politics.”

“You told me you sent Basil back to the Revenge. Where is he?” 

“I cannot tell you,” Davros replied cryptically. 

“You don't know,” she intuited. “He's hiding from you, is that it?” He remained silent, letting her delude herself with her hope and her creativity. “You're a fool and a coward, Davros.”

“I, the greatest genius and the most powerful prince in the land, a fool and coward?”

“You're a coward because, for all your wealth, all your power, you're terrified of just one man. He's just biding his time for the perfect moment. I can wait. And you're a fool, because I will never, ever, marry you. Ours is true love, and you cannot kill that with a thousand super-soldiers.”

Davros did then what every spoiled child who has been denied does; what every bully who ever faced someone who he couldn't frighten does: he ran away, and he took out his anger on something that couldn't fight back. He ran, fast as his weak legs could take him, down the secret stairway from the castle to the Zoo of Death, where Mistress Rugen studied Basil, still strapped to the Machine. He turned the dial as far as it would go, to the highest setting and then a little further. “You had your fairytale love story; you, of all people, might have been happy, might have had true love. And now I'm going to take that away from you.”

“No,” cried the Mistress, who knew what the Machine would do at that setting, even to a half-Gallifreyan, but it was too late, and the Machine thrummed to life, draining away every last year of Basil's life. He screamed such a scream as to make the first scream the Machine had drawn from him seem a child's playful yell.

“Preserve his body,” Davros ordered. “I will need it to create my super-soldier. But that can wait until after my wedding, when I will have time.” The Mistress nodded emotionlessly. “And when I will have the second piece of the puzzle.” He grinned mirthlessly, and this time the Mistress joined him. She couldn't stand Basil's little pet.

Basil's scream was such that every ear in Skaro City heard it, and Osgood, Danny, and Ashildr knew at once who and what it must be.

“The Man in Black,” Ashildr said for all of them, and if there is one sound a Viking can and will follow to the ends of the earth, it is the sound of a wounded opponent. She cursed as she ran until Danny scooped her up and set her upon his shoulders.

“Which way?” 

“Left! Faster!” Osgood loped easily after them, no longer quite the blade-thin girl who had spent years dancing and dodging and sprinting but still an improbable specimen, her amulet clutched in her hand. “Damn,” Ashildr ejaculated as Danny brought them to a tree-lined clearing. She leapt easily to the ground as Osgood joined them. 

“Did you lose the trail?” she asked.

“No, and that's what's worse.” She stomped in a circle about the clearing, the last echoes of the shriek long faded. “It led right here.”

“Then here it must be,” Danny said, his faith absolute. 

“Mm, what if there's a concealed entrance?” She cast about the clearing. Nothing obvious, but she wasn't expecting anything obvious. “Osgood?” she asked the kneeling Englishwoman. “Are you well?” She hadn't thought the run was that bad, but then, she'd been carried.

“Sister,” Petronella began, paying Ashildr no mind, “you know I pledged my life to avenge your death upon the six-fingered woman. To training to best her, and then to tracking her, wherever she may be. I have come so close, my sister. But to catch her and make her pay, I must have the help of the Man in Black. I pray you,” and here she brandished the sword, “guide our steel. Help me find the Man in Black!” She stood, eyes closed, blade out in front of her in both hands like a diviner's rod. The tip whipped back and forth in divine ecstasy. Petronella Osgood advanced, slowly, deliberately, certain that every footfall was guided. Finally, when she sensed the time was right, she lunged forward with every ounce of her being. The sword struck a knot on a branch of a tree. The trunk of the tree groaned and slid open. 

Ashildr gaped. “That was either a miracle or you are luckier than God.” She shook her head. “Wait; quiet,” she whispered. There was someone approaching them, a dim figure.

Ashildr crept ahead, skulking through the shadows until she was practically on top of the drab figure. It was the albino, fetching the wheelbarrow he wanted to shift Basil's corpse. “The Man in Black. Where is he?”

“Basil?”

“A gray-haired man, but strong, a sailor perhaps.” The albino nodded. “Where?” 

“In the fifth level. Down.”

“Is there anyone else here?” 

“No.”

“Thank you.” As she came up from her curtsey, she grabbed the albino by the neck and pinched _just so_ until he fell over, unconscious. 

“What if he was lying?” Osgood asked.

“I can tell.” The others shrugged agreement. “Come on then, down we go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ashildr manipulating Danny into joining the Brute Squad actually makes a ton more sense than the way it unfolds in the book, where Fezzik goes from crying in a cave to the Brute Squad with almost no explanation.


	13. Chapter 7: The Wedding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the depths of the Zoo of Death are plumbed, a miracle is worked, and a plan is hatched.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Very temporary character death in this one.

It was a bit of a squeeze for Danny, but the three of them picked their way down the stairway, without even any light to glint off Osgood's sword until they were nearly to the first level. They followed her between the specimens of strength: roaring lions and thrashing crocodiles. “Stay close,” she cautioned them, just before the Arabian Gastini dropped its coils over them. Davros kept it on the verge of starvation as an experiment: would the desperation make it stronger still? Or would the lack of nutrition weaken it? Current evidence seemed to favor increased strength.

“Danny!” Osgood cried. “Do something!” 

He flexed and struggled, but with each breath the Gastini only seemed to close tighter about the three of them. “I'm...trying,” he grunted with effort. 

“You know,” Ashildr gasped, “that little boy is never going to forgive you if you die down here.”

“What do you mean?” Danny asked, but he had already managed to slip his powerful fingers out and under the snake's deadly press. 

No reply. Danny had his forearms free. “Ashildr, what do you mean!” Even with tears starting to well up in his eyes, he had one hand crushing the Gastini's throat as the other clawed for breathing space.

“I knew nothing was too strong for you,” Osgood reassured him as they sprang free from the dead serpent. “But what was she talking about?” She regretted her inveterate curiosity as soon as she spoke.

“That's Danny's story.” Ashildr backed up slightly. “I've said far too much already,” she added quietly. “I'm sorry.”

“But it kept us alive,” the Moor managed through gritted teeth. “And that's what matters to an officer. Come on, “ and they followed him, down the stairs, to the specimens of speed, caged cheetahs and falcons, somehow darker still. He didn't say anything for a long while, and when he did, they wished he hadn't. “Here come the King Bats!” he screamed, paralyzed, for, to any Moor who has heard his mother cry “here come the King Bats,” there is no contest as to which bat is the biggest, most terrifying in the world.

“Down, both of you!” Osgood called, surprisingly self-possessed, and she strode forward, the fabulous sword in her hand. As if without thinking she slew the first bat, eyes closed, every whisper of wings a clue. Two more, and left, right, both they fell, impaled on the sword. “I am Petronella Osgood, and still a chevalier!” she cried, for she was, even with the months of drinking and moping. The razor tip of the blade moved perfectly for her, even with the slain king bats weighing it, slowly ruining the balance. Seven more, and too fast to clear the blade. “Come for me,” she managed. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and then there was no more. “I do not think they will trouble us further,” she said at last, breathing heavily.

They waited—but not too long—for her to recover, and made their way through the rest of the second level, and down, and through the third. “The door is locked,” Danny announced. 

“Could you break it down?” Ashildr asked. The Moor looked doubtfully at the steel door in the steel frame. She peered at the lock in the dim light—strangely, it was brighter here, despite the fact that they had gone down deeper. There were more torches, for one, and Osgood had taken one from a sconce. 

“I think I see the key,” the Englishwoman announced. The torch lit a small cage with two inhabitants: a small brass key, and a scorpion. Ashildr shuddered as she recognized the creature.

“It's a Carpathian duskclaw,” she announced. “Venom is extremely toxic, and they strike at the slightest sign of fear, hesitation, or sudden movement. So long as I'm careful...” She gestured to the hatch at the top of the cage. “I should be fine.”

“And what if you aren't?” Danny asked, rather tenderly.

“Don't leave my body here,” she said simply. The other two nodded. Neither of them would leave their worst enemy here to rot. With that, she opened the little hatch. It would be just big enough for a small man like Davros; there was plenty of room for her wrist, and she eased her fingers closer and closer to the key.

She had just seized the little bit of metal when Osgood blurted out, “Gods, how are you not terrified?”

“I'm--” she began.

She hesitated.

The duskclaw struck.

At once she could feel the venom burn into her. Knowing what she had to do, she snatched the key, pulled it out, and shut the lid with her other hand. “Don't...leave...me...” she reminded them as her world went dark. I really have to stop making a habit of this, she thought to herself.

Osgood and Danny looked at each other, aghast. “Can you carry her?” Osgood asked at last, feeling helpless despite the torch in her left and the sword in her right. He nodded mutely, and slung the diminutive Viking over his shoulder. 

Down they went. Down to the level of fear.

“Osgood?”

“Mm?”

“I don't like this.” 

“It's not all--” There was a blood eagle ripping a gobbet of flesh from what looked suspiciously like someone's arm. “I don't like it either.” They walked in queasy silence. “Twelve and three is fifteen.”

Danny grinned. “Divided by three is five!” The torch seemed to glow a little brighter, and they wended their way, almost merrily, through the zoo until they reached a door at the bottom of an almost quaint set of stairs. Thirteen of them, each approximately one foot wide. Wooden. Warmly lit and warmly painted. And at the bottom, certain death.

“Why am I scared?” asked Osgood. She looked at the door again. “Oh, right: because it's too obvious.” She prodded the top step with the tip of her sword, then with the toe of her boot. Nothing. She peered at the first of the candle holders casting a friendly orange over the proceedings. Nothing. “Here,” she said, “you take the torch and stay at the top.” 

Danny took it nervously. “Why?”

“Because if something snuffs out the candles, I don't want it to get the torch.” This was half true. Also, if something snuffs out everything on the steps, I don't want it get you. She took a second step down, then a third. The steps did not so much as creak menacingly. Putting on a brave face, she took a fourth step, then skipped down three more. She was in the middle now. Six feet from Danny; six feet from death. She didn't know that, of course. 

“Death is here.” Danny's voice was mournful.

“I'm sure it's perfectly safe,” Osgood lied. She could feel herself start to sweat. Put aside the chevalier, she told herself. Be the alchemist again. Break things down and find the hidden truths. What is wrong here? Her body trembled.

“Then I'll come join you.”

“No!” She reached for her pendant. “Not...not just yet.” What was wrong? Nothing was wrong, that was what was wrong. She muttered to herself as she stepped down once more. Everything else about this place had Davros and the Mistress's twisted fingerprints all over it. So why was this one staircase like something out of a noble's cozy winter estate? Where was the trap she couldn't see? She took another two steps. 

“I'm scared,” Danny said, but it was more than that. He had seen soldiers crack before, under the strain; had damn near done it himself, before Ashildr had found him. He didn't want to see it in Osgood; not now.

Her hands shook. “I am Petronella Osgood the chevalier; come for me!” she shrieked, both hands on the blade, taking another reckless step closer to death. 

“I'm coming down,” Danny said, slowly, because he didn't want his friend to whip around suddenly. “You're starting to scare me.” He was trying desperately to seem calm for her sake but he wasn't convinced. 

“Wait,” she called. He joined her on the seventh step. She took a deep breath and took the torch back. “We'll go together, the three of us.”

“Step by step,” he agreed. Seven and one was eight. Plus one was nine. Plus one was ten. Plus one, plus one, plus one...

“I'm sorry I've turned into a complete ball of maddened neuroses,” she apologized, still manic. “But it's just that there really needs to be something wrong here and _I can't figure out what it is and it's killing me!_ ”

Danny's palms started to sweat now, because if Osgood cracked, that meant that he had to be the officer, and no sir, that wasn't him at all. So he took off running, Ashildr over one shoulder and Osgood under the other armpit, shouting at the top of his lungs, until he crashed through the wooden door at the bottom, green speckled recluse nesting behind the handle and all. The door splintered, the spider squashed, but Danny and Osgood were only a bit bruised.

Basil on the other hand...

“Dead?” asked Danny, setting Ashildr down to examine the corpse.

“No,” Osgood managed. “He can't be.”

“And yet he is,” Ashildr observed. “Distinctly dead.” She turned to face Danny and Osgood. “I'll explain later. Now. Do either of you have any money? I've got a few crowns saved up.”

“I may or may not have spent my last copper on strong drink,” Osgood admitted sheepishly.

“The brute squad pays pretty well.”

“Well, grab Basil and let's get the hell out of here; hopefully between the two of us we can afford a miracle.”

***

“What do you apes want?” Vastra snarled. She was getting rather sick of all the kids who came up only to make fun of her. [“Auntie Vastra! Auntie Vastra!”]

“My dear lady, we wish to purchase a miracle.” Ashildr turned on the charm at full blast.

“Aren't you worried that I'll kill the poor monkey?”

“Ah, you see, he is already dead, and you are the last miracle madame in all of Skaro.”

“So, what, you figured you'd give me a chance because I couldn't possibly make things worse?” She put on her best affronted air, which was rather impressive, even through her veil. “Sure, the king fired her, but what the devil?”

“We've got money,” Osgood pointed out.

“Let me talk to my witch.” Strictly speaking, Jenny Flint was not a witch, but she knew more than enough to fake it, and she had other skills which made her...indispensable. Vastra went to the back of the hut. “Guess what I've got out front: a giant Moor, a tiny Viking, a live Englishwoman, and a dead Scot.”

“So sell them a miracle, my love.” Jenny was the practical one. “See how much they have.”

Vastra nodded and went back out front. “How much do you have?” 

“Sixty-five crowns.” Jenny nearly jumped for joy, but stifled her glee.

“I've never worked for so little.” She went in back. “They only have twenty.”

“Twenty would be a great help,” Jenny goaded her, knowing the truth. “We're running low on coal and the winter's coming.”

Vastra shivered. She hated the cold. “Alright, I'll do it.” She took up the bellows from the fireplace and inflated Basil's lungs. “Luckily for you, he's only mostly dead. But for a miracle like this to work, he has to want to come back. Time to find out what's so important to your friend.” She took a deep breath and shouted, directly into his ear: “You in there! Why do you want to come back from the dead?!”

She pushed on his chest and the faintest of whispers came out. “True love...”

“There you go,” Ashildr said. “True love. Nothing more noble.”

“As if a Viking would know anything about nobility,” Vastra scorned her. “Look at this grey-haired stick insect,” Miracle Vastra sneered. “You might as well expect true love from a mountain range. No, what this no-account gambler and ruffian said was 'to bluff,” for, as you know, the unvoiced f is very difficult for a corpse to pronounce--”

“Liar! Liar!” Jenny shouted.

“Get back in the kitchen, witch!”

“I”m not a witch, I'm your wife! And I heard what he said, and he said 'true love,' you wizened lizard!” yelled Jenny. “And so help me, you're going to bring that man back to life, or the coal burner is the only thing warming your bed this winter.” 

Vastra hissed her frustration. “That's hardly fair.”

“Time was you'd do anything for true love,” Jenny reminded her. “Davros was right to fire you.”

“Don't you mention his name here!” 

Ashildr, Danny, and Osgood shared a look.

“As it happens,” Ashildr began nonchalantly, “this man's true love is Davros's fiance, Princess Clara of Blackpool. And we plan to kidnap her with his help.”

“And Davros winds up with egg on his face?” Vastra asked. She was already starting to cozy up to the idea.

“All the egg,” Osgood promised. 

“Let's brew you a miracle.” A predatory smile filled Vastra's face; Jenny jumped up and down and clapped with glee.

And so passed the next sixteen hours, with Danny, Ashildr, and Osgood gathering ingredients for the miracle pill. Most of it is fairly tedious stuff not worth the trouble to rehearse (though there was one amusing anecdote involving a holocaust cloak, a relic of Joan of Arc, and three stray cats). But at the end of the day, there was a gray, clayey lump the size of a golf ball, dipped lovingly in chocolate: the miracle pill. They wheeled Basil to the palace. “Have fun storming the castle!” chorused Jenny and Vastra after them.

“Here we are,” Danny said. He looked nervously at the hundred soldiers. Even with Basil at full strength—and Vastra had as much as promised that he wouldn't be—that was far too many for them to fight.

“How are we going to make him swallow the pill?” Osgood asked.

“I've got the smallest hands, let me shove it down his throat,” Ashildr commanded. The others nodded.

“Unhand me! Decided to gang up on me, have you?”

“You're alive!” marveled Osgood.

“Yes, obviously. Now, why won't my arms move?”

“You've been dead,” Danny said bluntly. “Hello, by the way. Call me Danny. This is Osgood, and this is Ashildr.”

“Basil.” He looked at Ashildr. “Didn't I kill you? No offense.”

She sighed. “It's a long story.” 

“Well,” Basil remarked, coming back to his senses one sense at a time and starting with his sense of humor, “at least we know it won't be a tall tale.” Ashildr rolled her eyes. “Now. What is going on? Be quick about it; or, if I could move anything below my neck, I would beat you with my shoe.”

“Let me explain,” Osgood began. “No, there is too much: let me sum up. In half an hour, your true love marries Prince Davros. Between now and then, we must break into the castle, kidnap her, and get out again. Leaving some time to spare for me to kill Mistress Rugen.”

“Liabilities.” He wished desperately for a yo-yo, or a guitar, or something to do with his hands. Or, frankly, the ability to do something with his hands. 

“One working castle gate, one hundred guards.” Ashildr turned his head to look.

“Assets?”

“My steel, Danny's strength, Ashildr's cunning, and your brains.”

“Not enough.” He closed his eyes in despair. “Then my murderer marries my true love, and I can do nothing.” And I will live out my years, and you won't be there. He found he could not send his mind to Clara now, despite the tortures.

“Oh, for fuck's sake, I've come back from the dead twice just to get to this point, and I am not about to accept defeat now. Now, _how are you going to win?_ ” 

“It isn't possible. Now, if we had a wheelbarrow, that would be something.” Danny coughed and gestured down to the wheelbarrow that Basil was propped up in. “Ah.” He closed his eyes to think. Yes, there she was. He smiled contentedly as out came the comforting chalk, the friendly teasing. He laced his fingers with hers and wrote with his other hand. “Shut up, all of you.” He sat up. “What I wouldn't give for a holocaust cloak...”

“Will this do?” Danny asked, shaking out his holocaust cloak. He shrugged. “I needed it to gather the fire mud, and then it fit so nicely I just kept it.”

“Bloody pudding brains,” Basil groused. “Right, at some point I'll need a sword.”

“You can barely hold it,” Osgood pointed out.

“But that is hardly common knowledge.” A humorous twitch of his eyebrows. “Now, this is what we do...”

***

Clara wasn't slightly worried, even when Davros announced that the wedding would be moved up half-an-hour, even with an armed Davros watching her every move, bad luck though it may be. The man was a fool and a coward, she reminded herself, and never a match for her Basil, her Doctor.

“Where is your true love now?” Davros asked. She would have sworn he had read her mind if her thoughts weren't always with Basil. 

“I don't know,” she replied serenely. “But I know where he will be. Where he will always be. If Basil is still Basil...he will have my back.” Her grin was as calm as Davros's was demonic. And when the screaming began, her grin only deepened.

***

But it was not Basil causing the screaming. He was, instead, walking unsteadily behind the wheelbarrow as Osgood and Ashildr grunted and pushed. They were grunting and pushing because Danny was in the wheelbarrow, wearing the burning holocaust cloak, rumbling “I am the Dread Pirate Roberts! There will be no survivors!” over and over as he glowered his way toward the gate...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may have reorganized the Zoo of Death scenes so that they match up more neatly; it's a bit fuzzy in the novel, but now Danny is strength, Osgood is speed, Ashildr is poison, and the three of them together conquer fear.
> 
> Also, "I'm not a witch, I'm your wife!" may or may not have been the reason I cast those two as Max and Valerie; from there it was a simple step to Vastra's observation about true love from a mountain range, which was also one of the first lines to write itself.


	14. Chapter 8: The Honeymoon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Revenge! True Love! Adventure!
> 
> ...and then they lived happily ever after.

Rather more than one-by-one, the guards fled, every last one of them. Leaving Sarff standing alone in front of the gate.

“The key,” Ashildr demanded lazily.

“I have no idea what you're talking about.”

“Danny, rip one of his arms off,” Basil ordered.

“Oh, you mean this key?” He produced a clunky iron thing, handed it over, and ran.

“Well, now we're in,” Danny said. “Where should we meet up again once this is finished?” Before anyone could answer him, they rounded the corner to see the Mistress with four guards.

***

Davros had become rather a bit nervous about the whole affair. First there was an awful lot of screaming where the Brute Squad had been. Then there was the sound of someone moving through the castle where there should only have been himself, the Emperor, Rugen, the four guards, and the Vicar. After all, he didn't want any witnesses when he murdered Clara.

Clara, on the other hand, was utterly calm. “I'm not saying a single word until Basil walks through that door,” she told him frankly. “And if you don't like it, you can run me through right now.” It was somewhat unorthodox for the groom to have the bride at swordpoint, but as the Vicar could not find anything against it in the Book of Prayer, he had consented to perform the ceremony. “After all, isn't that what you're planning on doing anyway?” She assumed, correctly, that he was still planning on starting a war with Gallifrey. He didn't answer her, and she wasn't inclined to say anything to him.

“Mawwige,” the vicar began. “a dweam wiffin a dweam.”

Mercy, Davros thought, he's going to launch into a sermon. “I beg of you, hurry the ceremony as fast as you can.” He smiled a wan smile. “My love knows no bounds.” Clara snorted derisively.

“The dweam of wuv, wapped wiffin the gweater dweam of everwasting west.”

“Mistress, see what is going on out there,” Davros ordered. “Man and wife,” he told the Vicar.

“But I haven't gotten there yet.” Davros's deadly glare brooked no argument. “I pronounce you man and wife.” Davros grinned, pulling Clara along with him as he fled the chapel in the other direction.

***

“Kill them,” the Mistress giggled. The four swordsmen advanced, but the six-fingered blade flickered in the dusky light and the fourth man was dead before the first one's blood stained the stone. 

“You don't want to get between me and my nemesis,” Basil cautioned her. “I suggest you run.”

“Wait, Prince Davros is your nemesis?” The Mistress's nose rankled with offended pride. “I thought we were friends! Come on, I spent weeks torturing you and built the machine that tore the life from your bones, and he's your nemesis?” 

“As it happens, there's someone with a prior claim on you.” Basil stepped aside to reveal Osgood.

Osgood turned towards the Mistress and bowed. There was something strangely familiar about the Englishwoman, but she couldn't place the face. “Hello,” she said. “My name is Petronella Osgood. You killed my sister. Prepare to die.”

That was when the Mistress turned and ran.

***

“My dear father,” Davros addressed the Emperor, “I fear the Gallifreyans are attacking. I shall require several minutes to arrange the castle's defenses; could I entreat upon you to escort my wife to our chambers?” He left to fetch a pair of boots which had previously belonged to a Gallifreyan soldier, and then to ready his phenomenal chariot. Just in case he had to make a hasty retreat.

Clara waited until Davros was out of sight. “Your Royal Highness, it was a pleasure to meet you. But now, I have places to go.” She left the decrepit monarch in her dust, pausing only to snatch a dagger from a decorative wall display. Basil was here, she knew it. Why else would Davros be so afraid? Now she just had to find her true love. And kill anyone who stood in her way. But most importantly, stay alive, because Davros wanted her dead. 

***

The Mistress fled, slamming and locking a heavy door behind her. “Danny, smash it down,” Osgood pleaded, throwing her weight against it. “Please.” Where had Ashildr gone, she wondered.

“I'll just be a minute,” he promised Basil, who was leaning against the wall, sword in his other hand. With a running start, he plowed through the door. When he turned around, Basil was gone. “Where have you gotten off to?” he asked. “I never wanted to get into a life of adventure anyway,” he muttered, and turned to follow Basil. He picked the wrong corridor.

Meanwhile, Osgood was gaining. Soon, she thought, after all these years, I shall have my revenge.

***

Clara made her way to a spare bedroom: defensible, but with multiple escape routes. She turned toward the bed, thinking to brace it against one of the doors, when she screamed. There, lying on the bed, was Basil.

“You know, I never liked bedrooms. What's the point of having a room with only one purpose? You'd never have that sort of thing on a ship, you know.” His tone was light, conversational: almost whimsical. A sword rested easily in his right hand, so Clara kissed him from the left.

“You bloody great idiot,” she managed when she finally came up for air. “What took you so long? Did you stop off for a nap?” She would have slapped him had she not been so terribly glad to see him.

“If it makes you feel better, I was dead until thirty minutes ago. Sorry about the morning breath, by the way.”

Clara stared at him. “You were dead. You were dead and gone, and you came back for me?” 

“Couldn't very well let your fiance keep you, not after he was the one to do me in, now could I?”

Clara wasn't surprised that Davros had arranged for Basil's death. “You mean my hus—” She stopped. “I never said 'I do,'” she realized. “We're not married.” She kissed Basil again, more gently this time. “Let's find the vicar.”

“Let's get the hell out of here,” Basil corrected her. “Gently.”

She kissed him. “I knew you'd come back for me.” 

“When did you start believing in impossible heroes?”

“Don't you know?” [Even Macha gags at that line.]

***

“You're alive!” The Mistress was more pleased than astounded; she had rather thought the engine would be able to deal with most toxins, after all. “Now help me,” the Mistress said, relieved to see Ashildr. “There's a mad Englishwoman chasing me; you've got to stop her,” she demanded, drawing a nasty-looking dagger to ready an ambush.

“I know,” Ashildr replied coolly, kicking the blade away. “I brought her here specifically so she would kill you. In a fair fight, of course. She wouldn't want it any other way, and I'd rather not be the person who denied her her revenge.” 

“You owe me a life debt.”

“I _did_. And then I _died_.” She grinned. “I got better. Thanks for that, by the way.” She cocked a hand to her ear melodramatically. “Are those footsteps?” She gestured to the Mistress to draw her sword. “I told you, a fair fight. Steel on steel. I owe you that much at least.” She grinned. “I'm going to enjoy watching this.” 

The door swung open.

“Hello. My name is Petronella Osgood. You killed my sister. Prepare to die!”

Rugen lunged before Osgood could finish speaking, running the Englishwoman through with her rapier. She gasped with the shock, blood oozing out from the wound.

***

“You are not going anywhere,” Davros insisted, sword drawn. 

“Do you really think I've come back from the dead to back down now?”

“To the death, then?” Davros offered.

“No; to the pain.”

***

“Go on,” Ashildr cheered Osgood on, “plug up that wound. Awfully sporting of you to let her have first blood and all.” If popcorn had made it to Skaro yet, she would have wanted some.

Osgood jammed one hand into her side as the Mistress struck to finish her off. As if moving by itself, her sword arm parried the blow into her shoulder instead of her heart. 

“Hello,” she began again, softly, “my name is Petronella Osgood. You killed my sister. Prepare to die.”

The Mistress launched another attack; this one blocked as well. She frowned. She was ordinarily in favor of playing with her food, but this was ridiculous. “Who are you?” she screamed.

“Hello, my name is Petronella Osgood! You killed my sister! Prepare to die!” She closed; they crossed swords. 

“Yes, I get it, thank you.” Her lip curled with distaste. “I recognize you; you're that blacksmith I killed a while back. Or her twin sister, apparently.” Her eyes twinkled. “Now I get a matched set! Delightful!”

“Hello, my name is Petronella Osgood! You killed my sister! Prepare to die!” Her amulet banged against her chest, forgotten, unneeded.

“Stop saying that!” cried Mistress Rugen, the six-fingered woman.

“Offer me money.”

“As much as you want.”

“Offer me power.”

“All that I have.”

“Offer me anything I want.”

“Anything.”

“ _I WANT MY SISTER BACK, YOU BITCH!_ ” And the six-fingered sword flashed out but once. But the Mistress's heart had already stopped of fear. Her face was a mask of terror and agony. Osgood wanted to have it painted and framed to hang over her mantle. Ashildr wanted a bronze death-mask made; that sort of thing lasted longer, and it paid to think that way when you might well live forever.

“Come on,” Ashildr said. “Let's find Basil and Clara and get out of here.” She tore off Rugen's cloak and started slicing it into strips as they walked to bind Osgood's wounds.

***

“To the pain: what do you mean by that? Explain!” Davros was well aware that he was a mad scientist with a sword and that he was facing off against two people that he had been considering as prototypes for his super-soldier project. But he also knew that until fairly recently, Basil had been excruciatingly dead and was now lying flat on his back. Time to see how much he has left, Davros thought.

“I'll use small words and speak slowly so that it sinks into your pudding brain. To the pain means this. We duel. If you win, you kill me.”

“So far so good. And if you win?”

“The first thing I take will be your feet at the ankles. Most likely you will have usable stumps in six months. Then your hands at the wrists. Those might heal in five.” Ordinarily, Basil was not a man of vengeance or violence, and even as a pirate he had put his prisoners to death quickly. But now Clara had been threatened and all bets were off. “Then your nose. Followed by your tongue. Next to go will be your right eye.”

“And then my left eye, and then my ears?”

“Wrong! Your ears you keep, so that every child's cry, every shriek of terror at seeing your face, every babe that weeps to see you, you hear perfectly. So that you know just how much your hideous appearance matches your twisted soul. That you live in humiliation and anguish.” He was properly enjoying this. 

“You're bluffing.”

“Am I? You must have followed me, saw that I sailed the Skaro Channel at night, climbed the Cliffs of Insanity, and survived the Fire Swamp. I outfenced a chevalier, outwrestled a giant, and outfoxed a Viking. I came back from the dead. I'm the Dread Pirate Roberts.”

“The Dread Pirate Roberts is a legend,” Davros sneered, but he didn't believe it.

“Too kind! Now, choose whether you live or die, you monster. Drop. Your. Sword.” With the last three words, he drew himself up off the bed, sword leveled at Davros.

The weapon clattered to the ground. It was followed a moment later by Davros himself. “Good idea to distract him so that I could get behind him,” said Clara, wielding a heavy pewter candlestick. “And I really didn't want to hear what he had to say. Let me just tie him up.” She knelt by the unconscious noble. “How are you doing?”

“Been better.” He collapsed to the floor. “Finish up with him,” he told Clara as she started towards him. “Don't want you to get confused and tie me up.”

“Maybe later,” she teased him. 

He gulped. Well, _that_ was still working. Good, good. He looked around the room using only his eyes, saw Ashildr and Osgood find them. “Where's Danny?”

“Wasn't he with you?” Ashildr asked.

Basil tried to shake his head, failed. “No. What about the Mistress?”

Osgood grinned. “Dead. I'm fine, thanks for asking.”

“Osgood?” called a voice from below. 

“Danny!” Osgood rejoiced. 

“There you all are,” Danny called as Clara and Osgood helped Basil up to the window. “I got a bit lost, sorry. But I found this wicked chariot.” It was Davros's fabulous chariot, the one that went without any horses at incredible speeds. “Come on down: if you go one at a time, I think I can catch you.” He did some math in his head. “It's only twenty feet or so.”

“Take Clara first,” Basil gasped. “Do as you're told, my love.” And she nodded, and jumped into Danny's arms. Fortunately, they were all relatively small human beings (apart from Danny, who could carry Basil, who was the next biggest), and the chariot was fairly spacious, so they all packed in tightly.

“Good of you to all gather together in one spot for me,” said Sarff, backed once again by the brute squad. 

Clara forced her way to the front of the chariot. “Mistress Rugen is dead. Davros is injured. And I. AM. THE QUEEN.” She glared at them. “Now stand aside, and go help your prince.” To a man, the brute squad quailed, and fled. 

“You know, the Emperor hasn't resigned yet,” Ashildr pointed out as she started the chariot. “So you aren't technically the Queen.”

“What can I say? I'm an incredible liar.” She turned to Basil, hanging limply in Danny's arms. “Except for the bit where I love you. That part's true.”

“So, what now?” Danny asked.

“If it comes to it, how many of us have used a sword in battle?” Basil asked. Every hand was raised. He raised an eyebrow at Clara, who simply nodded. Ashildr's had been the first, but it hadn't been the last attempt on her life. “Well, that's alright then.” _Definitely_ still functional. 

“I've heard a rumor that the Dread Pirate Roberts's ship has been sighted off the Skaro coast,” Ashildr informed them. 

Basil grinned. “I knew they'd come back for me.”

“And then?” Osgood asked. “I've been in the revenge business so long, I don't really know what to do. I suppose I can go back into alchemy...”

“I was planning to steal the TARDIS, the personal yacht of the Lord President of Gallifrey _and_ the fastest boat on the seas.” As opposed to the slightly-slower Revenge, which was the fastest _ship_ on the seas. “But then I think I've had enough of piracy for now, and I think I know who my successor will be. Any of you care to come with us?”

“If you don't mind, you could just drop me back in London,” Osgood said. 

“That works for me,” Danny added. “Assuming we get away from the entire navy of Skaro, of course.”

“Of course,” Ashildr laughed. “I think I'll join you, at least for a while.”

Clara looked at her, then at Basil. “Fight you for her?”

They all laughed, even as the Skaro cavalry mounted its pursuit. But then, they were on the fastest vehicle in the land and the lead was theirs. And they lived happily ever after.


	15. Conclusion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is a final dose of fluff, and just a pinch of angst.

“It took some doing, of course,” Clara concludes, stretching a hand to the Doctor's.

“And nothing lasts forever.” He clasps hers, and smiles. Adalia has dozed off pleasantly on the loveseat. “Now, how did you like that?” Not as efficient as implanting the suggestions directly into their heads, but raw efficiency wasn't everything. Sometimes, it was best to savor the time you had.

“Read it again, read it again!” Quinn cries, waking his mother, just as Hermione arrives.

“It's a bit late, darling,” Adalia tells him. 

Macha ponders this. “Could you read it again tomorrow night?”

“I thought you wanted to go to the festival with your mum,” Hermione teases.

Quinn yawns. “Can't we do both?”

“I don't see why not,” the Doctor says.

“Oh, you don't have to,” Hermione says hastily.

“Nonsense,” Clara tells them all. “We have a duty of care.”

**Author's Note:**

> Full disclosure: Yes, I have bookmarked "Have Fun Storming the Castle." (http://archiveofourown.org/works/1186900) No, I have not read it. Probably I will now that this is finished, for my own amusement. Any similarities to this or any other fics are completely coincidental.


End file.
